,  ;O  ATTRACT! 
THE  BIRDS 


NELTJE  BLANCHAN 


LIBRARY 

OF   THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


HOW    TO    ATTRACT    THE    BIRDS 


A  cedar  wax-wing  in  a  choke-cherry  tree.      (Chapter  3) 

Frontispiece 


HOW     TO     ATTRACT 
THE    BIRDS    AND  OTHER 

TALKS    ABOUT    BIRD    NEIGHBOURS 


BY 


NELTJE    BLANCHAN 


Author  of  "  Bird  Neighbours,"  "  Birds  that  Hunt  and  Are  Hunted  " 
and  "  Nature's  Garden  " 


NEW   YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,   PAGE   &  COMPANY 
1903 


COPYRIGHT,  1902 
BY   DOUBLEDAY,    PAGE    &    COMPANY 

Published  October,  1902 


TABLE    OF    CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    How  TO  INVITE  BIRD  NEIGHBOURS      .  i 


II. 

THE  RUBY  -THROAT'S  CATERERS    .       .       ~  . 

19 

III. 

BIRD  ARCHITECTURE  ..... 

•       37 

IV. 

HOME  LIFE      ......... 

'•       65 

V. 

NATURE'S  FIRST  LAW                      .       .       . 

.       91 

VI. 

SONGS  WITHOUT  WORDS  

•      H3 

VII. 

WHY  BIRDS  COME  AND  Go     .       .     *. 

.      141 

VIII. 

WHAT  BIRDS  Do  FOR  Us        ... 

.      163 

IX. 

SOME  NATURALIZED  FOREIGNERS   .... 

..    205 

INDEX 

221 

HOW  TO   INVITE   BIRD   NEIGHBOURS 


ATTRACT   THE   BIRDS 


CHAPTER    I 

HOW  TO   INVITE   BIRD   NEIGHBOURS 

THE  birds'  point  of  view  differs  scarcely  at  all 
from  our  own  in  the  essentials  in  life  :  Protection 
from  enemies,  the  preservation  of  the  family,  a 
sheltered  home,  congenial  environment,  abundant 
food,  and  pure  water — these  natural  rights  the  birds, 
like  men,  are  ever  seeking. 

Each  spring  day  bringing  as  it  does  hosts  of 
feathered  travellers  from  the  Tropics  and  the 
Southern  States  where  they  have  passed  the  winter, 
how  can  we  induce  some  of  them  to  pause  on  the 
journey  long  enough  to  investigate  our  garden 
attractions  and  happily  to  become  our  neighbours 
for  the  summer  ?  Some  birds  there  are — the  wild 
ducks  and  hawks,  for  example — that  no  amount  of 
coaxing  would  induce  to  confide  in  man — the  worst 
enemy  or  the  best  friend  every  creature  has.  But 
very  many  of  the  smaller  birds,  relying  more  on  the 

3 


How   to   Attract   the    Birds 

safety  and  abundance  of  food  near  human  settle- 
ments than  on  the  more  doubtful  protection  that 
deep  remote  forests  afford,  need  little  persuasion  to 


Photograph  by  Brounell 

Cedar  wax-wings  postpone  nesting  till  midsummer 

remain.  John  Burroughs  was  not  the  only  one  to 
feel  disappointed  at  the  scarcity  of  birds  about  an 
Adirondack  Camp  as  compared  with  his  village 
home. 


How    to    Invite    Bird    Neighbours 


A   BIRD'S-EYE   VIEW   OF   OUR   GARDENS 

If  we  realized  how  carefully  and  how  hope- 
fully our  gardens  and  orchards  are  scrutinized  every 
spring,  and  on  what  details  judgment  upon  them  is 
passed  by  the  sharp-eyed  inspectors,  we  might,  so 
easily,  with  a  little  forethought,  arrange  them  to  the 
taste  of  the  home  seekers.  Even  in  trolley  nettled 
suburbs  and  in  very  small  door-yards  it  is  possible 
to  make  some  birds,  at  least,  feel  conscious  of 
their  welcome.  Large  estates  can  be  converted  into 
great  natural  aviaries  at  one-tenth  the  cost  of  a  hot- 
house. Cost,  did  I  say  ?  Why,  one  pair  of  chick- 
adees in  an  orchard  will  destroy  more  insect 
eggs  than  the  most  expensive  spraying  machine. 

It  takes  birds  a  surpris- 
ingly short  time  to  resort 
where  no  gunning  is  allowed 
and  very  quickly,  too,  they 
learn  where  to  avoid  the 
silent  deadly  air-rifles  and 
sling-shots  of  small  boys ; 
where  prowling  cats  are 
permitted  to  lurk  in  ambush, 
and  red  squirrels,  field  mice 
and  snakes  play  the  role  of 
villain  in  the  tragedies  of  the 
nests.  At  the  outset,  every 
family  must  choose  between 
a  cat  and  the  wild  birds 
as  pets ;  only  heart-breaks 
result  from  the  cruel  com- 


omation. 


Photograph  from  life  by  Carlin 

An  early  nest-builder  ;  the 
bronzed  grackle 


How    to    Attract    the    Birds 


HOUSE   HUNTING 

When  a  young  man's  fancy  lightly  turns  to 
thoughts  of  love,  mating  is  the  birds'  one  absorbing 
idea.  Some  of  them,  having  taken  partners  for  life 
in  previous  years,  or  having  found  mates  on  the 


Photograph  by  Carlin 

Blue-birds  are  peering  about  for  some  hole  in  an  old  hollow  tree  or  fence 

journey  northward,  are  ready  to  begin  housekeeping 
as  soon  as  they  reach  our  home  grounds.  Others, 
though  still  in  the  agonies  of  jealousy  or  the  bliss 
of  wooing,  do  not  long  delay  the  serious  work 
of  life.  Only  the  cedar  waxwings  and  goldfinch 
postpone  nesting  until  midsummer,  when  their  prin- 
cipal food  supplies — choke-cherries  and  thistle  seeds 
— are  most  abundant.  But  even  in  March,  blue- 
birds are  peering  about  for  some  hole  in  an  old 
hollow  tree  or  fence  rail  to  shelter  their  nest  from 

6 


How   to    Invite    Bird    Neighbours 

rude  spring  winds.  Flocks  of  iridescent  grackles  or 
blackbirds,  as  they  are  also  called,  wheeze  and  creak 
their  discussions  over  suitable  sites  in  the  top  of  our 
tall  evergreens.  The  robins'  clear,  ringing,  military 
call  is  heard  again  from 
the  apple  trees  and  lawn. 
Dusky  little  phoebes 
timidly  investigate  the 
beams  under  our  piazza 
roofs ;  swallows  skim 
above  our  barns.  A 
little  later  come  Jenny 
Wren  and  Sir  Christo- 
pher to  dispute  with  the 
ubiquitous  sparrow  the 
right  of  possession  to 
every  sheltered  cranny  : 
the  shutters  of  our 
houses,  overhanging 
eaves,  bird  boxes  and 
tree  hollows.  With  a  temper  out  of  all  proportion 
to  its  diminutive  size,  the  house  wren  dashes  at  any 
intruder  near  the  chosen  home,  chattering  scoldings 
into  his  very  ears  until  even  the  sparrow  is  glad  to 
leave  the  place.  Then  how  quickly  bubbles  up  the 
rollicking  song  of  ecstatic  joy  from  the  tiny  victor's 
throat !  In  a  free  fight  the  bluebird,  too,  whose 
disposition  is  by  no  means  so  heavenly  as  his  feathers, 
worsts  the  sparrow.  Robins  pay  no  more  attention 
to  the  teasing  impudence  of  that  dingy  little  upstart 
than  a  St.  Bernard  pays  to  the  yelps  of  small  curs. 


A  home  that  once  grew  on  a 
gourd-vine 


How   to    Attract    the    Birds 


THE   SPARROW   QUESTION 

Indeed,  a  great  deal  of  nonsense  is  talked  about 
sparrows  driving  away  other  birds.  Like  the  down- 
trodden Italian  and  other  peasants  from  the  Old 

World,  the  sparrows  are 
prepared  to  live  here 
where  others  would 
starve.  They  kill  no 
birds.  We  are  too  wont 
to  attribute  the  results 
of  our  own  misdeeds  or 
shortcomings — the  bar- 
barities of  millinery 
fashions,  wanton  slaugh- 
ter masquerading  as 
sport,  the  lack  of  good 
bird  laws  and  the  en- 
forcing of  them,  where 
such  exist — upon  these 
troublesome,  noisy, 
quarrelsome  little  feath- 

A  basket  house  ered  gamins.      Fitted  to 

survive     after     centuries 

of  competitive  struggle,  they  cannot  be  extermi- 
nated. As  well  try  to  eliminate  that  other  trium- 
phant European  immigrant,  the  daisy,  from  our 
fields.  Just  as  the  introduction  of  the  honey  bee 
from  Europe  must  cause  our  native  flowers  and  in- 
sects to  undergo  certain  changes  of  structure  and 
habit,  so  the  introduction  of  the  English  sparrow 
means  change,  adaptation,  to  our  native  birds.  In 
spite  of  the  sparrows,  there  is  already  noticeable  a 


How   to    Invite    Bird   Neighbours 


Poke-weed  berries 


Photograph  by  Brownell 


large  increase  in  the  number  of  song  birds  wherever 
protective  laws,  reinforced  by  Audubon  Societies 
and  public  sentiment,  have  operated  for  even  a  few 
years.  Sparrows  drive  no  birds  from  England. 

ATTRACTIVE   TREES,    SHRUBS   AND   VINES 

Protection  and  home  being  assured,  the  food 
supply  becomes  a  burning  question  by  June  when, 
in  well-regulated  bird  homes,  there  are  little,  gaping, 
clamouring  mouths  thrust  above  the  nest  every  few 
minutes  throughout  the  long  day.  In  planting  our 
gardens  and  lawns,  why  not  remember  the  needs  of 
the  birds,  if  we  really  wish  them  about  ? 

That  birds  love  trees,  large  old  ones  and  plenty  of 
them,  groves  of  mixed  species,  rather  than  a  single 

9 


How   to   Attract   the    Birds 


kind,  underbrush,  shrubbery  and  tangled  vines  to 
hide  and  hunt  among,  no  one  need  be  told;  but 
certain  trees  and  bushes  attract  certain  birds  more 
than  others.  Some  trees  there  are — the  cotton- 
wood  for  example— 
which,  from  the  bird's 
standpoint,  are  useful 
merely  as  perches,  but 
others  furnish  food,  too, 
or  favourite  nesting  sites, 
therefore,  why  not 
choose  them  ?  If  the 
bird-lover's  door-yard  is 
so  small  as  to  hold  only 
one  tree,  no  other  one 
will  attract  so  many 
feathered  visitors  as  the 
Russian  mulberry. 
Robins,  catbirds,  tan- 
agers,  grosbeaks,  wax- 
wings,  orioles  and 
thrushes  are  not  by  any 
means  the  only  ap- 
preciative visitors  with  the  poor  sense  to  prefer  the 
insipid,  sweet  fruit,  to  the  best  berry  God  ever 
made.  Scientific  farmers  are  now  systematically 
planting  mulberry  trees,  the  shad  bush  and  June 
berry  as  counter  attractions  to  their  strawberry  beds, 
whose  fruit  ripens  at  the  same  time.  Myriads  of 
flies,  ants,  wasps  and  other  insects  that  come  to  sip 
the  syrup  of  over-ripe  mulberries,  draw  insectivorous 
birds,  as  well  as  more  dainty  feasters. 

Probably  the  next  best  food  tree  for  birds  is  the 

10 


Photograph  by  Brownell 


Berries  of  the  American  holly 


How   to   Invite    Bird    Neighbours 


choke  cherry,  whose  racemes  of  small  black  fruit 
ripen  from  July  to  September.  Here  congregate 
large  flocks  of  crested  cedar  wax-wings,  more 
properly  called  cherry  birds  one  thinks  when  the 
distended  gullets  of  these  sociable  gourmands  are 
observed  through  the  opera  glass.  The  flickers, 
which  seek  the  tree/at  dawn,  robins  and  cuckoos, 
leave  few  cherries  for  hungry  migrants  on  their  way 
southward  in  autumn.  There  is  always  a  quid  pro 
quo  in  nature.  Of  course  the  birds  are  not  the  re- 
cipients of  purely  disinterested  favours.  By  dropping 
undigested  seeds  far  and  wide,  and  so  starting  new 
colonies  of  plants,  they 
repay  their  hosts  for 
every  favour  received. 
Tree  and  bush  dog- 
woods, mountain  ash, 
spruces,  pines,  juniper, 
hawthorn,  viburnum, 
elder,  black  alder,  wild 
plums,  blackberries, 
cherries,  crab  apples,  cur- 
rants, raspberries,  grapes 
and  gooseberries,  cat- 
brier,  burning  bush, 
moonseed,  wild  yam, 
buckthorn,  sumach, 
holly,  bittersweet,  wild 
rose,  wintergreen,  par- 
tridge vine,  hackberry, 
snowberry,kinnikinic,  auralia,  honeysuckle  bushes  and 
twiners,  mock  orange,  hop  vine,  huckleberries,  Vir- 
ginia creeper,  clematis,  bayberries,  shad-bush — these 


Photograph  by  3rownell 

Arrow-wood  berries  (October) 


How   to   Attract    the    Birds 


are  among  the  many  wild  and  cultivated  trees,  shrubs 
and  vines,  whose  fruit  attracts  the  birds.  Some  berries 
and  seeds  ripen  early  in  summer,  some  in  autumn,  others 
through  the  winter  and  last  until  the  migrants 

of  the  following  spring 
eagerly  bolt  them  on 
their  way  North. 

In  the  flower  garden 
many  seeds  are  pecked 
at,  but  the  sunflowers', 
which  give  all  the  finch 
tribe  a  rich  feast,  are 
prime  favourites.  Gold- 
finches, however,  ap- 
parently prefer  the  blue 
corn-flowers  or  ragged 
sailors,  which  should 
be  sown  in  a  corner  of 
the  wild  garden  if  not 
for  their  beauty's  sake 
then  certainly  for  their 
seeds. 

That  jewelled  atom,  the  ruby-throated  humming 
bird,  delights  in  so  many  flowers  and  plays  so  im- 
portant a  part  in  their  cross-fertilization  that  he 
requires  a  separate  chapter. 

Birds  can  endure  intense  cold  on  full  stomachs, 
but  their  winter  larder  must  often  be  very  lean. 
Never  is  hospitality  so  keenly  appreciated  as  then  ; 
never  are  birds  so  welcome  to  us.  Trimmings  of 
beefsteak,  lumps  of  suet  and  a  rind  of  pork  tied  on 
the  branches  of  trees  near  enough  to  the  home  to 
be  watched  by  its  inmates,  attract  some  very  inter- 


Photograph  by  Brown^ll 

Bittersweet  berries  that  furnish  fall 
provender  for  the  birds 


12 


How   to    Invite    Bird    Neighbours 


esting  winter  neighbours :  chickadees,  nuthatches, 
tufted  titmice,  brown  creepers,  woodpeckers  and 
blue  jays.  Minced  raw  meat,  waste  canary,  hemp 
and  sunflower  seed,  buckwheat,  cracked  oats  and 
corn,  crumbs  and  the  sweepings  from  the  hay  loft, 
scattered  over  the  ground,  make  a  delectable  hash 
for  feathered  boarders  with  varied  appetites.  Food 
that  can  be  put  in  dishes  on  piazza  roofs  or  on 
shelves  in  trees  either  winter  or  summer  for  such 
soft-billed  birds  as  robins,  catbirds,  mocking  birds, 
thrushes  and  orioles— the  most  delightful  and  tuneful 
of  bird  neighbours— is  made  of  equal  parts  of  corn- 
meal,  pea-meal  and  German  moss  into  which 
enough  molasses  and 
melted  suet  or  lard  have 
been  stirred  to  make  a 
thick  batter.  If  this 
mixture  is  fried  for  half 
an  hour,  it  can  be 
packed  away  in  jars  and 
will  keep  for  weeks. 
Grated  carrot  or  minced 
apple  is  a  welcome 
addition. 

Last  autumn,  when  a 
New  York  family  was 
seated  around  the  break- 
fast table,  a  young 
woodthrush  flew  into 
the  dining-room  through 
the  open  window.  It  was  a  straggler  from  a  flock 
on  its  way  South.  Weary,  hungry  and  faint  with 
travel,  it  alighted  on  the  frame  of  a  picture  which, 

13 


Photograph  t>y  Brownell 

Berries  of  the  Virginia  creeper 


How    to    Attract    the    Birds 


by   a  strange   and  beautiful  coincidence,  was  one  of 
Audubon's    old    prints.      Some    branches    of   bright 

alder  berries  happily 
stood  in  a  vase  on  the 
mantel  below.  Fear 
was  instantly  forgot- 
ten in  the  joy  of 
feasting.  After  a 
hearty  meal  of  the 
familiar  fruit,  and 
deep  draughts  o  f 
water  from  a  cup 
placed  near  the  ber- 
ries, the  thrush  de- 
parted as  it  came, 
but  refreshed  for  its 
travels.  If  this  den- 
izen of  the  woods 

A  combination  bath  tub  and  drinking  pan  i  j     r 

could  forget  its  nat- 
ural shyness  under  such  unnatural  conditions,  how 
much  more  readily  will  invitations  to  feast  be 
accepted  al  fresco  ? 


THE   MOST   INTERESTING   SPOT    ON 
YOUR   GROUNDS 

In  regions  where  there  are  no  brooks  or  lakes, 
birds  must  sometimes  fly  many  miles  for  a  drink. 
Perhaps  more  young  birds  die  for  lack  of  water 
than  from  any  other  cause.  Not  even  a  mulberry 
tree  attracts  so  many  visitors  as  a  bath  tub,  which 
also  serves  them  as  a  drinking  pan,  for  they  are  not 
squeamish  ! 


How   to    Invite    Bird    Neighbours 


But  see  to  it  that  the  pan  is  raised  above  the 
reach  of  cats  ;  only  on  large  estates  where  none  are 
kept  is  it  safe  to  sink  the  pan  into  a  lawn.  Birds 
cannot  fly  far  with  wet  feathers.  They  must  first 
dry  and  preen  them.  For  this  reason,  as  well  as  for 
the  cool  shade  they  afford,  trees  and  shrubbery 
should  partially  screen  the  drinking  water.  Where 
a  small  stream  cannot  trickle  into  a  fountain,  fresh 
water  poured  in  a  pan  daily,  or  even  twice  a  day  at 
midsummer,  is  very  gratefully  appreciated  when 
many  a  rare,  shy  bird,  its  bill  open  and  gasping  from 
the  heat,  seeks  refreshment.  If  the  water  be  deep, 
the  birds  will  let  it  alone  through  fear  of  drowning 

when   they  stand  on 

the  brim,  and  tip 
forward  as  they 
must  for  a  draught. 
A  pan  shallow 
enough  for  wading, 
or  a  deeper  one  sup- 
plied with  stones  for 
the  drinkers  to  stand 
on  safely,  furnishes 
more  interesting 
sights  to  a  household 
and  pure  fun  than 
any  other  object  you 
can  watch  through- 
out a  season.  Chil- 
dren enjoy  it  keenly. 
Sixty-nine  different 
species  of  birds,  many  rare  warblers  and  migrants 
among  them,  came  in  one  season  to  drink  on  a 


A  bird  home  made  from  a  wooden 
starch  box 


How   to    Attract    the    Birds 

suburban  lawn,  although  a  tiny  aggressive  wren  felt 
cocksure  that  he  alone  owned  that  basin. 


HOUSES   TO   LET 


In  our  over-conventional  gardens   hollow  trees  or 
one  with   so  much  as  a   partially    decayed    branch 


A  simple  type  of  bird  box 

such  as  the  flicker,  the  sapsucker,  the  red-headed, 
downy  and  hairy  woodpeckers,  bluebirds,  martins, 
wrens,  chickadees,  titmice,  nuthatches,  the  smaller 
owls,  crested  flycatchers,  and  some  other  birds  love 
to  nest  in,  are  cut  down  ;  but  what  substitutes  for 
these  natural  shelters  do  we  provide  ? 

A  short  log  sawed  in  two,   the  halves  hollowed 
out  in  the  centre  and  nailed  together  again  with  an 

16 


How   to    Invite    Bird    Neighbours 


Bird  houses  that  a  child  can  make 


How   to    Attract    the    Birds 

entrance  to  the  cavity  on  one  side  of  the  log,  is  a 
pattern  that  any  village  carpenter  or  schoolboy  can 
adapt  to  the  tiny  wren  and  the  large  woodpecker. 
Wooden  starch  boxes,  provided  with  sloping  roofs 
and  covered  with  bits  of  bark,  may  be  divided  into 
two  compartments  with  an  entrance  and  perches  at 
either  end,  although  a  one-room  cabin  is  preferable, 
for  birds  love  privacy  at  the  nesting  season,  however 
large  may  be  their  flocks  at  other  times.  The  ten- 
ement for  twenty  families  is  a  modern  city  attain- 
ment for  humans  to  which  few  birds  aspire.  There- 
fore, do  not  make  many-roomed  houses  or  put  more 
than  one  log  cabin,  can,  gourd  or  box  in  one  tree. 
Lodgings  should  be  in  readiness  very  early  in  the 
spring,  lest  a  pair  of  hopeful  feathered  house-hunters 
slip  by,  unable  to  find  a  home. 


A   drinking  shell   above  the  reach  of  cats 

18 


THE    RUBY-THROAT'S    CATERERS 


CHAPTER    II 

THE   RUBY-THROAT'S 
CATERERS 

WHAT  tempts  the  ruby-throated  humming-bird 
to  travel  every  spring  from  Central  America  as  far 
north  as  the  Arctic  Circle,  leaving  behind  him  for 
a  season  those  tropical  delights  so  dear  to  four  hun- 
dred or  more  stay-at-home  relatives  while  he,  the 
sole  representative  of  this  charming  New  World 
family  found  east  of  the  Mississippi  and  north  of 
Florida,  spends  half  his  life  among  us  in  voluntary 
exile  ?  How  it  stirs  the  imagination  to  picture  the 
solitary,  tiny  migrant,  a  mere  atom  of  bird  life, 
moving  above  the  range  of  human  sight  through 
the  vast  dome  of  sky,  "  lone  wandering  but  not 
lost "  !  Borne  swiftly  onward  by  rapidly  vibrating 
wings  that  measure  barely  two  inches  in  length,  he 
covers  the  thousands  of  miles  between  his  winter 
home  and  his  summer  one  by  easy  stages  and  arrives 
at  his  chosen  destination,  weather  permitting,  at 
approximately  the  same  date  year  after  year.  Why 
does  he  come  North  ? 

One  of  the  enlarging  ideas  gained  through  the 
study  of  Nature  is  that  the  same  primal  motives 
govern  the  actions  of  plant,  bird,  beast  and  man 
alike, — that  all  sentient  beings  act  intelligently 

21 


How    to    Attract    the    Birds 

through  the  same  strong,  animating  desires,  their 
powers  differing  only  in  degree,  not  in  kind.  Nat- 
urally, self-preservation  and  the  favourable  perpetu- 
ation of  the  species  are  fundamental. 

In  tropical  America,  where  vegetation  is  prodigal 
of  bloom  and  insect  life  fairly  teems,  the  ruby- 
throat  finds  himself  among  a  host  of  rivals  for  every 
drop  of  nectar  secreted  in  the  flowers  and  for  every 
minute  insect  his  tongue  craves.  But  the  competi- 
tion for  food,  however  keen,  is  no  stronger  than 
every  creature  requires  to  keep  its  faculties  thor- 
oughly alive.  Presently  even  the  luxuriant  tropical 
vegetation  takes  a  rest ;  insect  life  becomes  dormant  ; 
there  is  not  food  enough  for  all,  and  hunger,  the 
sharpest  of  spurs,  begins  to  prick.  How  did  the 
ruby-throat  learn  of  our  summer  at  the  North,  and 
that  by  following  the  course  of  the  *  sun  he  might 
live  in  perpetual  abundance  ?  Doubtless  his  ances- 
tors for  ages  back  wan- 
dered farther  and  farther 
northward  year  by  year 
in  search  of  food,  find- 
ing encouragement  all 
the  way;  and  through 
what  scientists  call  the 
instinct  of  orientation, 
that  is,  the  law  o*f  re- 
versed direction,  traced 
their  way  back  to  the  tropics  even  from  Labrador. 
Stirred  by  the  same  impulse,  intelligent  merchants, 
closely  pressed  by  competition  in  the  great  centres  of 
trade  at  home,  migrate  to  China  or  the  Philippines, 
where  they  may  have  the  whole  field  to  themselves. 

-22 


The    Ruby-throat's    Caterers 

Before  the  coming  of  the  Europeans  to  these 
shores  with  their  imported  trees,  vines,  shrubbery 
and  flowering  plants,  what  flowers  in  our  area 
of  Nature's  garden  undertook 

to    feed    the    rubv-throat  ? 

j 

It  is  true  that  almost  any 
blossom  which  secretes  nec- 
tar could  be  robbed  by  this  little 

j 

sprite.  Nature  always  rewards 
the  more  highly  developed  of  her 
struggling  children  by  making 
the  forms  beneath  them  tributary 
to  them.  "All  things  are  yours  " 
was  said  to  man  alone.  On  such 
flowers  as  are  easily  drained  by  the  mob  of  bees, 
wasps,  moths  and  butterflies,  the  humming-bird 
wastes  little  time.  Flowers  like  Jack-in-the-pulpit 
avowedly  cater  to  gnats.  Some,  like  the  carrion- 
scented  trillium  allure  flesh  flies.  The  iris,  gentian 
and  many  another  blue  or  purple  flower  charm  the 
more  highly  specialized  bees  by  wearing  what  Sir 
John  Lubbock  proved  to  be  their  favourite  colour. 
Butterflies  delight  in  bright  pinks  especially, 
although  there  are  few  exclusive  butterfly  flowers. 
The  night-flying  moths  come  to  the  wooing  of  the 
twining  white  honeysuckle,  tobacco  plant,  lily, 
moon-flower,  evening  primrose  and  a  host  of  other 
white  or  yellow  charmers,  easily  seen  in  the  gloam- 
ing when  brighter  hues  have  faded  into  the  prevail- 
ing darkness,  or  detected  from  afar  by  their  perfume. 
And  so,  if  we  could  go  through  the  entire  list  of 
flowers  in  our  gardens  and  those  growing  wild,  we 
should  find  that  each  is  deliberately  designed  to 

21 


How   to    Attract    the    Birds 

attract,  with  special  pleasing  features,  the  insect  or 
insects  upon  which  it  has  become  dependent  for 
help  in  getting  its  pollen  transferred  from  flower  to 
flower.  Self-pollination,  we  now  clearly  see,  is  one 
of  the  horrors  of  the  vegetable  kingdom ;  yet  it 
was  not  until  Darwin  proved  in  countless  experi- 
ments that  cross-fertilization  (pollen  carried  from 
one  flower  and  placed  upon  the  stigma  of  another) 
results  in  offspring  which  vanquish  the  offspring  of 
self- fertilization  in  the  struggle  for  existence,  that 
the  immense  value  of  insect  pollen  carriers  was 
understood.  No  wonder  the  flowers  take  infinite 
pains  to  entertain  their  insect  benefactors  and  punish 
relentlessly  the  useless  intruders  ! 

But  certain  flowers,  it  has  been  noticed,  do  not  at- 
tract insects  ;  even  the  great  bumble-bees,  moths  and 
butterflies,  with  very  long  tongues,  cannot  drain,  by 
fair  means,  the  columbine,  for  example.  It  is  true  that 
mischievous  bees  do  occasionally  bite  holes  through 
the  tip  of  the  columbine's  horns  of  plenty,  but  it  is 
evident  that,  since  the  flower  receives  no  benefit  from 
this  rascally  procedure,  they  cannot  be  legitimate 
guests.  Large  bumble-bees,  however,  doubtless  pay 
their  way.  Flowers  and  insects  form  a  mutual  ben- 
efit co-operative  association,  in  which  there  is  not  half 
so  much  pilfering  done  as  in  our  business  world.  There 
must  be  quid  pro  quo  or  there  is  no  trade  in  nature. 

Finally,  it  was  learned  that  just  as  there  are  fly, 
bee,  beetle,  wasp,  butterfly  and  moth  flowers,  so 
there  are  flowers  which  avowedly  cater  to  the 
humming-bird.  He  is  an  exacting  little  guest,  de- 
manding much  of  his  entertainer  who  would  in  turn 
be  served  by  him.  First  of  all,  he  likes  to  have  a 

24 


Trespassing  on  the  butterfly's  preserves 


The    Ruby-throat's    Caterers 

vivid     advertisement    to 
attract  his  eye  when   he 
is  flashing  about  through  the 
sunshine   in  search  of  food. 
Some     one     once      asked 
Eugene   Field  what  was  his 
favourite  colour.      "  Why,  I 
like  any  colour  at  all,  so  long 
as  it's   red/'   he  replied — an 
answer     which     the     ruby- 
throat   made  to   the  flowers   ages   ago.      It    will   be 
noticed  that  the  blossoms  which  the  bird  monopo- 
lizes are  either   red    or   orange :   possibly   the  latter 
please  him  for  the  sake  of  the  red  that  was  mixed 
with   the  yellow  when   their  corollas  were  painted. 
Such   flowers  as  cater  to  insects  must  provide  a 
landing   place,    a   lip    or   flattened  platform  of  some 
kind ;   but  this  the  humming-bird,   which 
sucks    with    his    wings    in     motion,     of 
course  does  not  require.     Nor  does  per- 
fume appeal  to  him.      Pathfinders  to 
the    nectary — little     dark     lines     or 
patches   of  bright   colour    on    the 
petals  such  as  the  bee  likes  to  see 
on   his  flowers — the  humming- 
bird may  ignore.      But  he  does 
demand  that  his  red  or  orange 
flowers    shall    hide    away    their 
nectar    in    deep    tubes,    where    the    mob 
cannot   drain   them   and  where  even    his 
most  threatening  rivals,  the  larger  bumble- 
bees, moths  and  butterflies,  will  find  it  difficult  to 
extract.      From   the  tip  of  his  needle-like   bill    his 

27 


How   to    Attract    the    Birds 

tongue  can  be  run  out  at  will  and 
turned  in  any  direction  to  lick 
up  the  last  drop  of  sweets  in  a 
curved  cornucopia,  whereas  both 
bee  and  butterfly  must  insert  their 
tongues  in  a  straight  line.  Here 
he  has  a  great  advantage  over 
them. 

Again,  he  stipulates  that  the 
wild  flowers  which  cater  to  him  here  shall 
bloom  so  as  to  feed  him  in  orderly  succession 
while  it  suits  his  convenience  to  remain  away 
from  the  tropics,  not  to  gorge  him  at  one  time  and 
starve  him  at  another.  His  visit  in  the  vicinity  of 
New  York  lasts  from  May  to  October. 

In  the  Southern  States,  through  which  he  is 
passing  in  April,  wooded  hillsides  and  thickets  are 
already  gay  with  whorls  of  the  coral  honeysuckle's 
brilliant,  slender,  tubular  flowers,  flaunted  from  the 
tips  of  the  branching  vine  where  the  dullest  eye 
must  be  arrested  by  their  beauty.  Into  these  deep 
wells  he  plunges  his 
bill  and  finds  ample  re- 
freshment on  his  journey, 
especially  when  he  adds  to 
his  menu  some  of  the  gauzy- 
winged  little  insects  which  have 
taken  shelter  from  the  spring 
winds  within  the  orange-lined  red 
trumpets.  .By  carrying  the  ripe 
pollen  shed  from  the  anthers  of  one 
flower  to  the  stigma  of  another,  the 
ruby-throat  pays  the  only  price  asked  for 

28 


Draining  the  columbine's  horns  of  plenty 


The    Ruby-throat's   Caterers 


his  generous  entertainment.  Late  in  the  season 
other  larger  birds  on  their  way  southward  will  bolt 
the  bright  berries  on  this  vine  and  distribute  the 
seeds  over  a  wide  area.  It  would,  perhaps,  be  im- 
possible to  find  another  plant  more  wholly  depend- 
ent upon  the  ministration  of  birds  than  the  coral 
honeysuckle.  Small-flowered  bush  honeysuckles 
have  adapted  them- 
selves to  small  bees ; 
those  with  longer 
tubes  and  greater 
ambition  strive  to 
please  bumble-bees ; 
the  twining  honey- 
suckle seen  on  every 
village  porch  wooes 
the  sphinx-moth 
with  white,  deli- 
ciously  sweet  flow- 
ers, most  fragrant  at 
evening  and  which 
turn  yellow  after 
fertilization .  Quite 
frequently  the 
larger  sphinx-moths 
are  mistaken  f  o  r 
humming-birds  at  gloaming  when  the  former  begin 
their  rounds.  It  is  true  the  ruby-throat  often  visits  the 
moth's  own  flowers,  but  in  the  rubes  of  those  which, 
like  the  twining  honeysuckle,  have  newly  opened  at 
evening  for  their  legitimate  benefactors'  benefit,  the 
bird  finds  little  left  to  reward  his  search  the  follow- 
ing day  unless  the  previous  evening  has  been  too 

31 


Oswego  tea 


How   to    Attract   the    Birds 

windy  or  rainy  for  the  moths  to  fly.  The  coral 
honeysuckle's  nectar  cannot  easily  be  reached  by 
bees ;  its  trumpets  could  not  be  seen  after  dark  by  the 
moths  ;  moreover,  it  has  no  fragrance  to  guide  them, 

but  it  pleases   the  ruby-throat 
in  every  essential  respect. 

What  is  the  next  flower 
to  spread  his  feast  ?  With  a 
broader  and  more  northerly 
range  than  the  coral  honey- 
suckle's, the  painted-cup  or 
Indian  paint-brush  scatters  its 
vivid  scarlet  tufts  through  the 
fresh  green  grass  on  meadow 
and  prairie  in  May,  its  bloom- 
ing season  extending  to  July. 
Usually  the  first  humming- 
bird of  the  season  is  seen 
suspended  as  if  by  magic  over 

these  glowing  flakes  of  fire.  In  this  species  not  the 
flowers  themselves — for  they  are  greenish  yellow — 
but  the  floral  bracts  which  enfold  them  are  ver- 
milion advertisements  to  catch  the  ruby-throat's  eye. 
Other  members  of  the  figwort  family,  to  which  the 
painted-cup  belongs,  wear  the  bee's  favourite  colour 
and  have  provided  a  landing  place  on  their  lower 
lips  for  their  benefactors  ;  but  here,  what  would  be 
superfluous  at  the  painted-cup's  entrance,  Nature  has 
eliminated. 

Closely  following  the  painted-cup,  and  indeed 
partly  overlapping  its  season,  comes  the  graceful, 
swinging,  rock-loving  columbine.  Inasmuch  as 
both  these  flowers  rarely  grow  in  the  same 


The    Ruby-throat's   Caterers 

neighbourhood,  and  as  increased  numbers  of  ruby- 
throat  migrants  need  to  be  fed  at  their  blooming 
season,  there  is  ample  opportunity  for  both  rivals  to 
flourish.  In  the  swollen  tips  of  each  of  the  five 
inverted  red  and  yellow  horns  of  plenty  which  go 
to  make  up  a  columbine,  nectar  is  secreted.  Small 
bees  with  their  short  tongues  may  well  abandon 
hope  of  reaching  it.  Owing  to  the  position  of  the 
flower,  butterflies,  which  would  have  to  place  them- 
selves upside  down,  could  scarcely  hold  by  their 
weak  legs  while  sucking,  and  their  tongues  flex 
readily  only  when  directed  downward  toward  their 
bodies.  Large  bumble-bees,  to  which  the  shorter 
spurred  blue  wild  columbine  of  Europe  is  perfectly 
adapted,  find  our 
species  so  difficult 
to  drain  that,  rather 
than  attempt  the 
task,  they  too  often 
nip  holes  in  the 
nectaries,  just  as 
they  do  in  the  lark- 
spurs, Dutchman's 
breeches,  squirrel- 
corn,  butter  and 
eggs,  jewel  weed 
and  other  flowers 
which  make  dining 
too  difficult  for  the 
clever  rogues.  But 
when  the  ruby- 
throat  whirrs  up  to 
the  columbine, 

33 


Cardinal  flower 


How   to    Attract    the    Birds 

poising  on  rapidly  vibrating  wings  before  first  one 
inverted  horn,  then  another,  until  he  circles  the 
flower  and  drains  each  tube  with  ease,  it  will  be 
seen  that,  in  making  this  round,  his  forehead  and 
bill  must  wipe  off  some  of  the  pollen  from  the 
golden  tassel  of  stamens  which  protrudes  from  the 
older  flowers  and  that  in  visiting  the  newly  opened 
columbines  in  the  stigmatic  stage,  he  must  neces- 
sarily leave  some  of  the  vitalizing  dust  on  them. 
Thus  the  columbine  compels  its  chosen  guest,  all 
unwittingly,  to  do  its  bidding. 

After  the  columbine  has  faded,  which  is  the  next 
flower  to  lure  the  ruby-throat  ?  Exquisite  bright 
orange-coloured  and  brown-speckled  jewel-weed 
blossoms  hanging  at  a  horizontal  from  the  tender 
plant  which  fringes  our  mill  ponds,  ditches  and 
streams,  appear  in  July,  to  last  sparingly  through 
the  summer.  The  incurved,  slender  tip  of  their 
horns  secrete  nectar  with  whose  overflow  only  the 
lusty,  acrobatic  bumble-bee  must  be  content.  To 
the  abundant  white  pollen,  however,  he  freely  helps 
himself,  and  in  so  doing  he  may  sometimes  benefit 
his  entertainer.  But.  the  humming-bird,  charmed 
by  the  bright,  graceful  flower — and,  indeed,  who  is 
not  ? — has  no  difficulty  in  directing  his  tongue 
around  curves  ;  and  as  he  inserts  his  bill  obliquely 
into  the  spur  while  he  hovers  above,  the  observer 
can  easily  see,  on  studying  the  jewel-weed's  mechan- 
ism, how  invaluable  his  services  to  it  must  be. 
This  is  one  of  the  plants  which  bear  also  cleistoga- 
mous,  or  never  opening,  self-fertilized  inconspicuous 
flowers.  It  has  found  its  way  into  England,  and 
Darwin  recorded  that  there  are  twenty  plants 

34 


The    Ruby-throat's    Caterers 

producing  cleistogamous  flowers  there  to  one  having 
the  showy  blossoms.  Since  there  are  no  humming- 
birds in  Europe,  why  should  the  jewel-weed  waste 
its  energies  ?  Bumble-bees  can  be  its  only  benefac- 
tors there  and  they  are  not  worth  such  expenditure. 

Glowing  scarlet  heads  of  Oswego  tea,  bee  balm 
or  Indian  plume,  as  it  is  variously  called,  prove  to 
be  next  of  kin  to  the  scarlet  salvia  of  our  gardens, 
which  comes  from  the  tropics  and  which  is  there, 
as  here,  fertilized  by  the  humming-bird.  Certainly, 
the  Indian  plume's  colour,  form,  mechanism  and 
blooming  season  (from  July  to  September)  are  as 
perfectly  adapted  as  the  salvia's  to  the  ruby-throat,  a 
constant  visitor.  Even  the  flower's  protruding 
stamens,  and  quite  frequently  the  bracts  and  upper 
leaves,  wear  his  favourite  colour.  Where  the  Indian 
plume  rears  its  rounded  heads  fringed  with  irreg- 
ularly slender  tubes  beside  a  mountain  stream,  only 
the  cardinal  flower  can  vie  with  it  in  splendor. 

Everyone  who  has  a  trumpet  creeper  on  the 
walls  of  his  home  knows  how  irresistibly  attractive 
to  the  ruby-throat  are  its  clusters  of  large,  tawny 
red  tubes  outstretched  to  hail  him.  Occasionally 
the  vine  escapes  from  our  gardens  at  the  North,  but 
from  New  Jersey  to  Illinois  and  southward  to  the 
Gulf  it  grows  wild  in  Nature's  garden,  blooming  in 
August  and  September.  Flashing,  whirring,  darting 
about  the  gorgeous  flowers,  their  guest  feasts  with 
perfect  satisfaction  for  do  they  not  offer  all  he 
desires  ? 

Why  should  the  exquisite  cardinal  flower  deck 
itself  in  incomparable  red  while  its  twin  sister,  the 
great  lobelia  and  its  lesser  kin  wear  blue  ?  Watch 

35 


How    to    Attract    the    Birds 

the  contented  bees  huzzing  about  the  latter  shorter 
tubed  group  and  then  the  ruby-throat  poised  in 
ecstasy  before  the  long-tubed  cardinal  flowers  in 
September,  if  you  would  distinguish  their  true 
motives. 

How  delighted  must  the  humming-bird  have 
been  when  we  first  added  to  our  gardens — and  his 
menu — his  favourite  salvias,  cannas,  nasturtiums, 
balsams,  scarlet  runner,  fuschias,  pelargoniums  and 
gladioli,  among  many  other  welcome  plants  imported 
from  warmer  climes  !  These,  while  unnatural,  un- 
expected rivals  to  wild  flowers  which  undertook  to 
feed  him,  earn  our  threefold  gratitude  for  bringing 
him  to  our  very  doors,  causing  his  numbers  to 
increase  and  prolonging  his  stay  until  frost  blackens 
the  once  gay  garden  beds.  Not  till  then  does  he 
leave  them  for  the  tropics. 


Young  birds  in  the  nest 

36 


BIRD    ARCHITECTURE 


B  n  A  P 
or 

UNIVE 


CHAPTER   III 
BIRD   ARCHITECTURE 

JUST  as  surely  as  the  peoples  of  the  earth  have 
each  a  characteristic  style  of  architecture,  a  Hotten- 
tot hut  or  an  Indian  tepee,  a  Moorish  mosque,  a 
Gothic  cathedral  or  a  Chinese  pagoda  being  stamped 
on  its  face  with  the  racial  individuality  of  the 
designer,  so  the  humblest  home  of  the  birds  about 
us  tells  at  once  to  the  practised  eye  the  species  of 
the  feathered  architect  who  made  it.  The  "  dang- 
ling cup  of  felt"  is  quite  as  characteristic  of  the 
Baltimore  oriole,  for  example,  as  the  temple  with 
its  rows  of  profusely  ornamented  commas-  was  of  the 
Corinthian  Greek.  And  the  marvel  is  that,  guided 
only  by  instinct,  the  birds  should  continue  to  repeat 
generation  after  generation  the  special  architecture 
of  their  ancestors  without  taking  the  pains  to  study 
a  finished  model  or  standing  by  to  watch  the  expert 
masters  of  their  craft  at  work.  For  birds  reared  in 
captivity  build  as  good  homes  and  by  precisely  the 
same  model  as  the  wild  birds  of  their  species.  Nor 
does  any  bird  servilely  copy  the  nest  of  one  not  of 
his  own  tribe.  It  would  be  difficult  to  name  the 
style  of  architecture  to  which  most  of  our  modern 
suburban  villas  belong  (unless  we  call  it  the  Con- 
glomerate) ;  but  every  farmer's  boy  can  tell  at  a 
glance  the  robin's  mud-plastered  nest  from  the  song 
sparrow's  or  bobolink's  grassy  cradle,  Primitive- 

39 


How   to    Attract   the    Birds 

creatures  of  necessity  have  singleness  of  purpose  ;   it 
is  only  when   we   imperfectly   civilized  humans  be- 


Photograph  by  Carl  in 


The  robin's  mud-plastered  nest 


come  bewildered  by  the  multiplicity  of  ideas  pre- 
sented for  us  to  choose  from,  that  we  are  in  danger 
of  losing  our  natural  simplicity. 


INDIFFERENT   BUILDERS 

Ages  and  ages  ago  when  the  first  birds  evolved 
from  reptiles  (from  which  all  are  descended)  it  is 
probable  they  neither  built  nests,  nor  incubated  their 
eggs,  but  left  them  for  the  sun  to  hatch,  just  as  the 
reptiles  leave  theirs  to  this  day.  Birds  of  the  lower 
orders  are  still  indifferent  builders  when  they  build 
at  all.  A  depression  in  the  earth,  such  as  barn-yard 
hens  and  ducks  make  with  their  bodies,  and  the 

40 


Bird    Architecture 


gradual  addition  of  grass,  leaves  and  feathers  to  give 
comfort  as  well  as  to  retain  warmth,  were  certain 
marks  of  progress. 
Even  before  the 
days  of  the  steam 
plough  or  the  mow- 
ing machine, — the 
birds'  Juggernaut, 
— there  were  ten 
enemies  of  the 
nests  on  the  ground 
to  one  in  the  trees; 
and  it  did  not  take 
very  highly  devel- 
oped birds  to  per- 
ceive that  the 
perches  on  which 
they  themselves 
sought  safety  from 
snakes,  rats,  mice 
and  the  larger  prowling  animals,  might  support  a 
nursery.  Fear  has  ever  been  a  powerful  spur  to 
achievement.  Stiff  sticks,  unyielding  twigs  that  by 
no  possibility  could  be  woven  into  a  cradle  were 
simply  piled  in  loose  heaps  on  the  limb  of  a  tree  ; 
yet  these  crude  lattices  mark  the  first  step  in  the 
evolution  of  bird  architecture.  On  such  bare  slats 
the  young  of  herons,  egrets,  pigeons,  doves,  cuckoos 
and  many  other  birds  that  come  into  the  world 
naked  or  with  a  thin  coat  of  down,  at  most,  to 
protect  their  tender  flesh  must  spend  an  unusually 
long  and  helpless  babyhood.  Quite  naturally,  then, 
the  next  step  forward  was  to  carry  the  mattress  of 

41 


Photograph  by  Carlin 


The  song-sparrow's  grassy  cradle 


How   to   Attract    the    Birds 

grass,  moss,  leaves,  hair,  fur  or  feathers  into  the  tree. 
When  some  birds  had  learned  to  weave  these  mater- 
ials into  a  cup-shaped  cradle  (the  second  step),  and 
choicely  lined  it  (the  third);  finally  when  a  few  of 
the  number  actually  expressed  a  sense  of  the  beauti- 
ful in  the  exquisite  neatness,  symmetry  and  adorn- 
ment of  their  home,  their  architecture  became  an 
art  indeed.  The  nest  had  stood  for  love  and  duty 
before ;  now  with  the  higher  development  of  the 
intellectual  and  aesthetic  sense  of  the  home-maker 
came  new  delight  in  achievement.  Imagination 
awoke. 

But  it  must  not  be  inferred  that  all  the  intelligent 
birds  nest  in  trees  and  all  the  stupid  ones  remain  on 
the  ground.  In  a  later  paper  we  shall  see  that  the 
terns  and  other  sea  birds  which  place  their  eggs 
among  the  pebbles  on  the  beach,  and  the  ruffed 
grouse  which  lays  hers  among  dead  leaves  in  the 
woods,  and  the  night  hawk  which  frequently 
chooses  a  depression  in  a  bare  rock  to  cradle  her 
treasures,  show  just  as  much  intelligence  as  the  most 
expert  weaver. 

TUNNEL   BUILDERS 

The  belted  kingfisher  and  the  bank  swallow 
secure  protection  for  themselves  and  their  young, 
not  by  nesting  in  the  trees,  but  by  excavating  a  hole 
in  a  bank,  preferably  one  that  is  steep  enough  to 
discourage  intruding  climbers.  It  usually  takes  a 
fortnight  of  hard  digging  for  the  kingfisher  to  tunnel 
four  feet  deep,  so  that  when  a  home  is  found  twice 
that  depth  with  ample  nursery  accommodations  at 

42 


Bird    Architecture 


Copyright,  1902,  by  Win.  Lyman  Underwood 


Opening  to  the  four-foot  tunnel  of  the  belted  kingfisher 

the  far  end,  we  can  easily  imagine  the  labour  in- 
volved. No  wonder  the  birds  become  devotedly 
attached  to  this  place  of  refuge  from  the  storm  and 

45 


How   to   Attract   the    Birds 

fortress  against  enemies.  One  might  suppose  that 
parents  capable  of  so  much  hard  work  would  do 
just  a  little  more  and  provide  a  comfortable  bed  for 
their  babies.  Not  they  !  Disgorged  fish  bones  and 
scales  form  the  prickly  cradle. 

The  bank  swallow,   like  all  his  kin,  is  fond  of 
associating  with  large  numbers   of  his  fellows   even 


Photograph  by  Brownell 

Bank  swallow's  nest  and  eggs.       (Burrow  in  the  sand  opened  to  show  nest) 

at  the  nesting  season.  The  face  of  an  entire  bank 
where  a  colony  of  these  graceful  birds  elect  to  live 
will  be  drilled  with  holes  as  if  it  had  been  used  as  a 
target  by  soldiers  practising  with  small  cannon.  To 
dig  at  least  twenty  inches  into  the  sandy  bank  is  no 
slight  task  for  so  small  a  bird,  which  still  has  energy 
enough  remaining  to  carry  twigs,  grass  and  feathers 
into  the  end  of  the  tunnel. 

46 


Bird    Architecture 

CARPENTERS   IN    FEATHERS 

Not   a    few    birds   which    like   to    hide  away  in 
deep  holes  prefer  not  to  be  underground  and  if  they 


Photograph  from  life  by  A.  L.  ITincehorn 

A  master  carpenter — a  flicker  at  her  hole 

do   not   find   a   hollow   tree  what  is  there  to  do  but 
use  their  stout  bills  as  chisel  and  hammer  to  hollow 

47 


How   to    Attract   the    Birds 

out  a  tunnel  to  their  liking  ?  Of  course,  the  master 
carpenters  are  the  stockily  built  woodpeckers  whose 
deserted  homes  many  a  bluebird,  owl,  tree  swallow, 
wren  or  woodduck  is  thankful  to  occupy.  First  a 


-T#* 

Photograph  by  Dugmore 

The  chickadees  swelter  in  a  lining  of  fur  and  feathers 


are 


circle  of  holes,  more  perfect  than  you  or  I 
likely  to  draw,  is  drilled  on  the  trunk  or  larger  limb 
of  a  tree.  Naturally,  a  partially  decayed  one  is 
preferred.  After  the  circular  doorway  has  been  cut 
out,  how  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Woodpecker,  working  in 

48 


Bird   Architecture 

turn,  make  the  chips  fly  !  To  chisel  two  or  three 
inches  of  sound  or  even  partially  decayed  wood  is  a 
full  day's  work;  yet,  if  for  any  reason  the  pair  of  car- 
penters become  disgusted  with  the  site,  they  do  not  hes- 


Photograph  from  life  by  Dug-more 

Chickadee  and  young  (nest  opened) 

itate  about  beginning  another  tunnel,  another  and  still 
another,  in  different  trees  until  they  finally  complete 
a  horizontal  passage  descending  abruptly  into  a  pear- 
shaped  chamber.  Truly  the  workman  is  known  by 
his  chips ;  here  the  finer  ones  remain  in  the  nest 

49 


How   to   Attract   the    Birds 

and   form    its    lining,   whereas    the  nuthatches,  tit- 
mice  and    chickadees,  which   live  in  similar  homes, 


The  chimney  swift's  wicker  cradle  which  the  bird  glues  to  the  bricks 

swelter  in  a  lining  of  fur  or  feathers,  probably  be- 
cause their  hardy  ancestors,  living  at  the  far  North, 
needed  warm  bedquilts  which  their  more  widely 
travelled  descendants  are  too  conservative  to  discard. 


PROGRESSIVE   MOTHERS 

Occasionally  a  bird  is  strong  minded  enough  to 
break  away  from  old  traditions.  Before  this  country 
was  settled,  the  swift  also  nested  in  hollow  trees  ; 
but  after  trees  began  to  be  cut  down  and  chimneys 
arose  above  the  roofs  of  houses  everywhere,  the  birds 
were  quick  to  perceive  that  fires  are  generally  out 
by  their  nesting  season ;  therefore,  why  not  take 
advantage  of  the  innovation  ?  So  completely  did 

50 


Bird    Architecture 

they  forsake  their  old  nesting  sites  to  build  in  chim- 
neys that  the  name  chimney  swift  is  now  universally 
applied  to  them.  (They  are  not  swallows ;  not  even 
related  to  them,  however  frequently  one  hears  them 
miscalled  chimney  swallows.)  At  the  nesting  season 
the  saliva  glands  become  much  enlarged  and  with 
the  mucilage-like  fluid  flowing  from  them  the  birds 
glue  their  wicker  cradle  together  and  hang  it  on 
the  bricks  inside  of  the  chimney.  The  mucilag- 
inous nest  of  our  swift's  Asiatic  relative  is  much 
sought  by  Chinese  epicures. 

We  now  speak  of  house  wrens  as  if  it  had 
always  been  the  habit  of  these  friendly  little  birds 
to  live  under  the 
eaves  of  our  houses 
or  in  the  boxes-  set 
up  for  them  about 
the  home  grounds ; 
but,  before  there 
were  houses  on  this 
continent  they,  too, 
nested  in  tree  hol- 
lows and  do  still  when 
a  satisfactory  natural 
shelter  can  be  found. 

The  exquisitely 
beautiful  little  wood- 
duck,  cousin  of  the 
Chinese  Mandarin 
duck,  likewise  shows 

Wrens  formerly  nested  in  tree  hollows 

remarkable  indepen- 
dence to   nest  in  a  hollow  tree  while  nearly  all  her 
relatives  place  their  eggs  either  on  the  ground,  in  a 

51 


How   to    Attract   the    Birds 

tussock  of  grass  or  in  a  floating  mass  of  leaves  and 
muck.  Since  baby  ducks  can  swim  long  before 
they  can  fly,  this  strong-minded  little  mother  will- 


The  barn  swallow  hangs  its  clay  bracket  against  the  rafter 

ingly  carries  hers  to  the  lake  in  her  bill,  much  as  a 
cat  carries  her  kittens,  rather  than  risk  the  loss  of 
her  eggs  on  the  ground  from  the  depredations  of 
water  rats. 

TRADES  REPRESENTED. 

The  tailor  bird,  one  of  the  warbler  tribe  living 
in  the  East  Indies,  which  sews  leaves  together  to 
form  a  cradle,  cannot  be  named  to  swell  the  list  of 
trades  represented  in  our  birds'  architecture ;  but 
we  have  many  expert  weavers,  carpenters,  felters, 
masons,  moulders,  decorators  and  a  few  professional 
hum-bugs.  The  barn  swallow,  manufacturing  bricks 
without  straw,  hangs  its  clay  bracket  against  the 

52 


Bird  Architecture 


rafters  ;  the  Baltimore  oriole  makes  a  unique  pouch 
from  fine  grasses,  hair,  string,  plant  fibre,  down, 
woollen  or  cotton  strips,  felting  the  numerous  mater- 
ials into  a  thin  but  wonderfully  strong  material  that 
neither  storms  nor  the  weight  of  a  family  can  tear 
where  it  hangs  from  the  tip  of  a  high  branch  well 
beyond  the  reach  of  snakes  and  small  boys — equally 
unwelcome  visitors  from  the  bird's  point  of  view. 
Birds  are  exceedingly  particular  about  the  materials 
for  their  nests ;  even  the  slovenly,  amorous  dove 
rejects  one  stick  in 
preference  to  another 
for  her  rickety  lat- 
tice. The  little,  chip- 
ping sparrow  will 
have  horse  hair,  that 
and  nothing  else  in  the 
world,  to  line  her  cup- 
shaped  cradle.  The 
goldfinch  chooses 
thistledown  for  her 
upholstery.  After  a 
heavy  rain,  how 
many  robins'  nests 
fall  to  the  ground! 
This  is  because  the 
unfortunate  masons 
used  mud  among  the 
grasses  in  the  cradle 
rather  than  sticky, 
impervious  clay, 

which,  unhappily,  is   not  always  to  be  found     The 
phoebe,  cementing  her  exquisite  nest  of  moss  and 


The  little  chipping  sparrow  will  have  horse 

hair,  that  and  nothing  else  in  the  world, 

to  line  her  cup-shaped  cradle 


How   to   Attract    the    Birds 

lichens  with  mud,  and  lining  it  with  hair,  saves  it  from 
similar  destruction  by  placing  it  under  bridges,  cliffs 
and  the  eaves  of  piazzas.  Like  a  miniature  Dutch 
oven  is  the  nest  of  the  golden-crowned  thrush,  whose 
domed  nursery  only  the  sharpest  eyes  can  detect 
among  the  leaves  on  the  ground  in  the  woods. 

Which  are  the  best  decorators  among  birds  ? 
While  many  show  true  strivings  after  the  beautiful, 
one  hesitates  between  the  parula  warbler  and  the 
humming-bird  before  awarding  the  palm,  for  the 
former  will  consent  to  live  only  where  she  can 
gather  the  graceful  gray  moss  to  festoon  her  nest, 
while  the  latter  builds  the  daintiest,  downiest, 
tiniest  nest  imaginable,  then  stuccos  it  with  bits  of 
lichen  for  the  purpose  of  concealing  this  master- 
piece of  architecture,  no  doubt ;  but  surely  this 
aesthetic  little  creature  is  also  influenced  by  a  sense 
of  beauty. 

Which  birds  then  are  hum-bugs  ?  If  the  marsh- 
wren,  which  goes  £o  the  pains  of  building  a  number 
of  nests  among  the  tall  grasses  in  the  same  vicinity 
for  the  purpose  of  misleading  intruders,  does  not 
belong  in  this  category,  the  dusky  crested  flycatcher 
certainly  does.  This  "wild  Irishman  among  birds" 
scours  the  country  for  cast  snake  skins  to  place  in 
his  nest ;  but  when  this  bugaboo  cannot  be  found 
he  has  had  to  content  himself  more  than  once  with 
the  skin  of  an  onion!  At  a  catbird's  imitation  of 
pussy's  mew,  even  the  house-dog  pricks  up  his  ears. 
The  yellow-breasted  chat  will  lead  you  a  sorry  chase, 
throwing  his  unmusical,  ventriloquous  voice  now 
into  the  cat-brier  tangle  across  the  stream,  now 
among  the  undergrowth  far  beyond. 

54 


The  marsh-wren  goes  to  the  pains  of  building  a  number  of  nests  to  mislead 

the  intruder 


Bird    Architecture 

HOW  THE  YELLOW  WARBLER  OUTWITS 
THE  COWBIRD 

There  are  still  many  lazy,  slovenly,  indifferent, 
commonplace  or  utilitarian  home  makers  among 
undeveloped  or  degenerate  birds  as  among  humans, 
but  happily  only  one  of  our  birds  disgraces  itself,  like 
the  European  cuckoo,  by  refusing  to  make  a  home 
and  to  perform  any  domestic  duties  whatever.  When 
other  virtuous  nest  builders  are  working  and  singing 
from  morning  till  night,  the  cowbird,  a  dark,  silent, 
decadent  relative  of  those  charming  songsters,  the 
oriole,  bobolink  and  meadowlark,  skulks  about  alone, 
*lyly  looking  for  the  chance  to  drop  an  egg  in  the 
nest  of  some  little  warbler  or  vireo — any  small,  weak, 
tender-hearted  foster-mother  she  can  find — leaving 
to  various  such  victims  the  labour  of  hatching  and 
rearing  her  scattered  brood.  A  serious  task  indeed 
awaits  the  over-burdened  little  mother  who  must 
feed  a  great  gaping  gourmand  in  the  cradle  with 
her  own  crowded  and  half-starved  babies. 

But  there  is  at  least  one  ingenious  little  architect 
among  the  cowbird's  special  victims  whose  wits  fre- 
quently save  it  from  such  misfortune.  Finding  a 
strange  egg  in  its  cup-shaped  nest  and  being  unable 
to  roll  it  out,  the  yellow  warbler  proceeds  to  weave 
a  new  bottom,  effectually  sealing  up  the  cow-bird's 
egg  and  preventing  the  heat  from  her  brave  little 
heart  from  warming  it  into  life.  Suppose  this  "  wild 
canary, "  as  it  is  often  called,  had  already  laid  her 
own  eggs  in  the  nest  at  the  time  of  the  cowbird's 
visit :  what  then  ?  In  this  case  the  warbler  does  not 
hesitate  to  sacrifice  them,  sealing  them  up  with  the 
cowbird's  by  weaving  a  new  bottom  above  them, 

57 


How   to   Attract   the    Birds 

rather  than  hatch  out  one  interloper  to  wony  and 
starve  her  brood.  Where  a  second  persecution 
has  taken  place,  two  new  cradle  bottoms  have  been 
woven.  If  you  ever  have  the  good  fortune  to  find 
a  two  or  three  storied  nest,  you  may  be  sure  it 
belongs  to  this  little  Spartan  mother. 


THE  CLIMAX  OF  BIRD-LIFE. 

For  special  and  excellent  reasons  of  their  own, 
some  birds  may  build  earlier  in  the  season,  some 
not  until  midsummer,  but  for  the  great  majority 
May  is  the  month  of  happy  achievements;  jealousies 
of  courtship  have  given  place  to  blissful  content; 
every  moment  is  filled  with  happy,  profitable  labour. 
Sometimes  both  lovers  busy  themselves  with  the 
home  building ;  perhaps  the  wife  does  all  the 
manual  work,  while  the  mate  merely  makes  her 
pretty  speeches,  approves  her  every  act,  applauds 
her  industry,  her  skill,  cheers  her  by  his  constant 
presence  and  such  music  as  love  alone  inspires. 
What  of  that  ?  She  is  perfectly  satisfied ;  these  May 
days  are  her  realization  of  Paradise.  Whatever  is 
best  in  the  nature  of  both  mates  at  least  temporarily 
triumphs  over  the  base ;  for  however  selfish  birds 
may  be  at  other  seasons,  in  May  they  are  truly  one 
in  purpose  and  sympathy.  According  to  their  tem- 
perament, some  work  impulsively  with  outbreaks 
of  rollicking  ecstatic,  passionate  song  like  the  wren, 
or  with  steady  persistence  and  the  serene  hymn  of 
the  thrush.  At  last  the  end  crowns  the  work :  the 
building  of  the  nest  embodies  all  that  is  greatest  in 
a  bird's  life. 

58 


Yellow  warbler's  nest,  normal  shape 


Yellow  warbler's  nest,  showing  how  the  bird  has  rebuilt  because  of  repeated 
persecutions  of  the  cowbird.     (One  cowbird's  egg  in  the  nest  even  now) 


or  TME 
UNIVERSITY 

1W^ '-  /  f  O  H  N  \  '\ 


HOME    LIFE 


1 

i 

3 


CHAPTER   IV 

HOME   LIFE 

SHARP,  ringing  cries  of  alarm,  then  of  terror, 
coming  from  a  pair  of  robins  one  morning  in  June, 
caused  me  to  drop  my  work  suddenly,  dash  out  of 
doors  and  follow  the  sound  through  the  garden, 
across  the  lane  tc  a  meadow  where  a  vagrant  cat, 
with  a  now-or-never  desperation,  made  a  leap  through 
the  grass  even  as  I  approached  and,  before  my  very 
eyes,  snapped  up  a  baby  robin  in  its  cruel  jaws. 
With  as  frantic  a  leap  upon  the  cat,  I  quickly  pried 
its  jaws  apart  and  released  the  limp  and  apparently 
dead  bird.  Three  other  young  robins,  which  had 
fallen  out  of  the  same  nest  in  the  cherry  tree  when  a 
heavy  thunder  shower  weakened  its  mud-plastered 
walls  the  night  before,  were  squatting  dejectedly  on 
the  ground,  unable  to  fly.  So  I  gathered  them  up  in 
my  arms  too,  lest  they  fall  a  certain  prey  to  the  cat, 
and  deposited  the  little  family  in  an  improvised 
flannel  nest  on  a  sunny  upper  balcony. 

One  might  have  supposed  that  the  parents  would 
find  them  here,  within  fifty  yards  of  their  cherry 
tree  home,  and  come  to  feed  them.  Strangely 
enough,  the  old  birds'  cries  of  distress  were  the  last 
sign  from  either  of  them  in  the  neighbourhood. 
Did  they  flee  the  place  in  despair,  thinking  their 
babies  foully  murdered  by  the  cat  and  me  ?  After 
waiting  in  vain  for  some  response  from  them  to  the 

67 


How   to   Attract   the    Birds 

incessant,  insistent  cheep,  cheep,  from  the  balcony 
nursery,  I  could  resist  the  cries  of  hunger  no  longer. 
Even  the  baby  which  had  been  literally  snatched 


A  thunderstorm  weakened  its  mud-plastered  walls 

from  the  jaws  of  death  had  now  recovered  from  his 
fright,  not  having  received  so  much  as  a  scratch, 
and  was  clamouring  for  food  as  loudly  as  the  others, 
jerking  himself  upright  with  every  cheep,  as  if  stamp- 
ing both  feet  with  impatience  at  delay. 

68 


Home    Life 

A   SIXTEEN    HOUR  WORKING   DAY 

From  that  hour  my  preconceived  ideas  of  bird 
life  were  radically  changed.  Once  I  had  shared  the 
popular  notion  of  birds  as  rather  idle  creatures  of 
pleasure,  singing  to  pass  the  time  away,  free  from 
every  care  while  they  flew  aimlessly  about  in  the 
sunshine,  fed  from  the  abundant  hand  of  Nature. 
But  bringing  up  those  four  feathered  waifs  taught 
me  that  birds  doubtless  work  as  hard  for  their  living 
as  any  creatures  on  earth.  At  about  four  o'clock 
every  morning  sharp,  hungry  cries  from  the  balcony 
wakened  me.  Perhaps  it  was  because  I  was  only  a 
step-mother  that  I  refused  to  go  out  on  the  lawn 
then  in  search  of  early  worms.  Another  nap  was 
more  agreeably  purchased  by  stuffing  each  little  crop 
full  of  the  yolk  of  hard  boiled  egg  and  baked  potato 
mashed  into  a  soft  paste,  the  lumps  washed  down 
with  a  tiny  trickle  of  fresh  water  from  a  stylographic 
pen-dropper.  Such  gaping  yellow  caverns  as  were 
stretched  aloft  to  be  filled  while  the  little  birds 
trembled  with  excitement,  jostled  one  another  and 
scrambled  for  first  turn !  Every  hour  regularly 
throughout  the  long  day  those  imperious  babies 
had  to  be  satisfied.  Ants'  eggs  from  the  bird  store, 
a  taste  of  mocking-bird  food  mixed  with  potato 
and  an  occasional  cherry  or  strawberry  agreed  with 
the  little  gourmands  perfectly.  A  small  boy,  who 
was  subsidized  to  dig  earthworms  for  them,  called 
the  bargain  off  after  one  day's  effort  to  supply  their 
demand.  Sixty  worms  had  not  been  sufficient  for 
creatures  which  eat  at  least  their  weight  of  food 
every  twenty-four  hours. 


How   to   Attract   the    Birds 

Doubtless  they  were  spoiled  babies  from  the 
first.  At  any  rate  they  had  me  completely  enslaved ; 
all  other  interests  were  forgotten;  not  for  anything 
would  I  have  gone  beyond  their  call.  But  real 
motherly  joy  in  them  came  when  their  pin  feathers 


A  full  crop  distended  his  speckled,  thrush-like  vest 

fluffed  out,  their  legs  became  stout  enough  to  climb 
and  hop  over  the  wistaria  vine  on  the  balcony, 
stubby  little  tails  fanned  out  pertly  and  full  crops 
distended  their  speckled,  thrush-like  vests.  When, 
after  about  two  weeks  spent  on  and  around  the  bal- 
cony, the  last  of  the  quartette  spread  his  strong 
wings  and  flew  off  to  the  strawberry  patch  to  pick 
up  his  own  living  thenceforth,  I  realized  as  never 

70 


Home   Life 

before  why  the  alert,  military-looking,  red-breasted 
robin  of  the  spring  becomes  more  and  more  faded 
and  dejected  as  summer  advances,  and  the  joyous 
song  of  courting  days  diminishes  until  it  ceases  alto- 
gether after  the  father  has  helped  his  mate  raise  two 
broods.  Yet  with  my  utmost  care  I  had  probably 
not  done  half  for  those  fledglings  that  their  parents 
would  have  done. 


WHAT  IT   MEANS   TO   REAR   A   BROOD 

In  a  state  of  nature,  what  would  a  pair  of  robins 
do  for  their  family  ?  After  the  building  of  the 
nest — of  itself  no  small  labor — there  follow  fourteen 
long  weary  days  and  nights  of  confinement  upon  the 
eggs  before  they  hatch.  Thenceforth  on  the  average 
of  every  fifteen  minutes  daily  from  dawn  till  dark 
both  parents  visit  the  nest,  usually  bringing  in  their 
bills  food  which  they  often  travel  far  and  work  hard 
to  find — earthworms,  grasshoppers,  locusts,  beetles, 
the  larvae  of  insects,  choke  cherries  or  other  small 
fruits  to  be  crammed  with  sharp  but  painless  thrusts 
into  the  ever  hungry  mouths.  The  second  an  old 
bird  alights  on  the  home  branch,  up  spring  the  little 
heads,  every  one  agape,  like  Jacks-in-the-box.  In 
their  loving  zeal,  the  parents  themselves  often 
forget  to  eat.  After  every  feeding,  the  nest  must 
be  inspected  and  cleaned,  the  excreta  being  either 
swallowed  or  carried  away.  Then  the  fledglings  are 
picked  over  lest  lice  irritate  their  tender  skins.  Very 
many  young  birds  die  from  this  common  pest  of  the 
nests,  especially  those  whose  cradles  are  lined  with 
chicken  feathers,  which  are  nearly  always  infested. 


How   to   Attract   the    Birds 

Birds,  like  all  wild  creatures,  live  in  a  constant 
state  of  fear,  but  parenthood  develops  courage  amaz- 
ingly, just  as  it  develops  all  the  virtues.  When 
climbing  cats,  snakes,  small  boys,  hawks,  owls,  crows, 
blue  jays,  red  squirrels  and  other  foes  do  not  threaten 
the  baby  robins'  safety,  either  heavy  rains,  high 
winds,  or  fierce  sunshine  may  require  the  patient 


The  vireo's  education  begins 

little  mother  to  brood  over  her  treasures.  Before 
they  are  a  week  old  their  education  begins.  On  the 
eleventh  day,  if  all  goes  well,  it  is  usually  the  mother 
who  utters  low  endearing  baby  talk,  coaxing  the 
little  fellows  to  hop  out  of  the  nest  and  about  it. 
Coining  near  an  ambitious  youngster  she  stands  but 
does  not  deliver  a  tempting  morsel  held  just  beyond 
his  bill.  Luring  him  with  it  farther  and  farther 
away,  hopping  and  flying  from  branch  to  branch, 

72 


Home    Life 

she  tantalizes  the  hungry  baby,  perhaps,  but  she 
educates  him  with  no  loss  of  time.  When  finally 
the  young  are  able  to  trip  lightly,  swiftly  over  the 
grass  after  their  parents,  have  learned  to  cock  their 
heads  to  one  side  and  listen  with  the  intentness  of 
veterans  for  the  stirring  of  worms  beneath  the  sod, 
to  capture  their  own  food  and  fly  swiftly  out  of  the 
presence  of  danger,  their  education  is  considered 
complete.  The  remainder  they  must  acquire  by 
experience,  for  even  now  their  parents  may  be  re- 
pairing the  old  nest  or  building  a  new  one  to  receive 
a  second  brotfd. 


BABY   BIRDS'  DIET 

Walking  along  a  hot,  sandy  road  in  Florida  one 
morning,  I  met  a  young  coloured  woman  with  a 
little  baby  in  her  arms,  pacing  back  and  forth  under 
a  blazing  sun.  A  glance  sufficed  to  show  that  her 
baby  was  ill.  It  moaned  piteously  and  its  skin  was 
burning  hot,  as  well  it  might  be  even  without  fever. 

"Come  under  this  tree,"  said  I,  "and  tell  me 
why  you  are  carrying  that  baby  about  in  the  heat." 

"'Cause  he's  sick  and  I'se  waitin'  fo'  de  doctor 
to  happen  along  dis  y^eah  road." 

"  What  do  you  think  is  the  matter  with  your 
baby?" 

"  I   specks  he  done  eat  too  much  fried  fish  dis 


mornin'. 


"Fried  fish!'     I    exclaimed.   "Why,   the    baby 
has  no  teeth !  " 

"  No'm ;    he   ain't   got   no    teeth   yet,    but    he's 
powerful  fond  of  fried  fish." 

73 


How   to   Attract   the    Birds 

A  Florida  jay,  which  was  noisily  searching  in 
the  palmetto  scrub  behind  us  for  a  mouthful  of  food 
to  carry  home  to  her  fledglings,  was  evidently  more 
discriminating  in  her  choice  than  the  equally  un- 


The  dove's  mismanaged  nursery 

taught  human  mother,  for  she  rejected  as  unfit 
many  insects  which  she,  herself,  would  gladly  have 
swallowed. 

Many  birds  have  one  diet  for  their  babies  and 
another,  quite  different,  for  themselves,  only  the  seed- 
eaters  reverse  our  ideas  and  give  their  strongest  meat 
to  babes.  However  strict  vegetarians  certain  of  the 
finch  tribe  may  be  at  maturity,  they  provide  for  the 
nursery  a  variety  of  insects.  These  are  not  often 
given  alive  and  squirming,  but  after  they  have  been 

74 


Home    Life 

knocked  and  bruised  into  a  pulpy  condition  that  is 
sure  to  cause  no  colic. 

Even  the  birds  which  provide  for  their  babies 
the  same  food  that  they  themselves  enjoy — which  is 
by  far  the  greater  number — usually  take  the  trouble 
to  give  it  special  preparation  for  the  tender  stomachs. 
Having  no  pepsin,  lime-water  or  sterilizer  at  com- 
mand, what  could  be  a  simpler  way  to  prepare  a 
perfectly  digestible  baby  food,  than  to  first  swallow 
and  digest  it  themselves,  then  pump  it  down  the 
throats  of  offspring  not  yet  old  enough  to  be] 
squeamish  ?  In  this  way  the  young  flickers,  for 
example,  are  fed,  but,  as  far  as  is  known,  no  other 
woodpeckers.  The  flicker,  or  high-hole,  collects 
a  square  meal  of  perhaps  two  or  three  thousand  ants 
which  partially  digest  while  she  is  on  her  way 
home.  Her  approach  is  sure  to  summon  the* 
hungriest,  or  possibly  the  greediest  youngster  to 
the  entrance  of  the  tree  cavity.  Thrusting  her  bill 
far  down  his  gaping  throat,  she  uses  force  enough 
to  impale  him.  One  confidently  expects  the  point 
to  appear  somewhere  through  the  baby's  back. 
With  the  same  staccato  motion  used  when  drum- 
ming on  a  tree,  she  jerks  her  bill  up  and  down  so 
violently  that  the  fledgling  has  all  he  can  possibly 
do  to  hold  on  during  the  second  or  two  it  takes  to 
pump  part  of  the  contents  of  her  stomach  into  his. 
Yet  the  next  baby  pushes  and  scrambles  for  position 
when  the  first  one  slips  back  satisfied,  just  as  if  he 
anticipated  a  truly  delightful  experience !  By  this 
same  method — regurgitation — are  humming-birds, 
purple  finches,  and  many  other  birds  fed,  doubtless 
many  more  than  we  suppose,  for  it  is  only  a  few 

75 


How   to   Attract    the    Birds 

years  since  the  habits  of  so  common  a  bird  as  the 
flicker  were  thoroughly  studied.  The  vultures  eject 
the  contents  of  their  stomachs  at  will,  as  we  shall 
see  in  a  later  chapter,  for  quite  a  different  purpose. 

Fish-eating 
birds  especially 
are  wont  to  re- 
gurgitate their 
food.  While 
the  cormorant 
is  flying  home 
with  its  babies' 
dinner  safely 
stowed  away, 
the  fish's  skin 
will  be  digested 
off  completely, 
leaving  the 
meat  in  prime 
condition  for 
young  stom- 
achs. On  the 

Humming-bird  regurgitating  food  into  crop  Otlier        Jl  a  II  Q  , 

of  her  young  SQme   fl^  eaters 

allow  their  ba- 
bies to  swallow  skin,  bones  and  all.  The  pelicans 
which  ply  the  coast  of  Florida,  searching  for  food, 
collect  a  quantity  of  fish  in  the  great  pouch  which 
hangs  from  their  lower  bill  like  the  silk  bag  which 
used  to  drop  from  beneath  our  grandmother's  sewing 
tables.  On  returning  to  the  nest,  open  flies  the 
parent's  bill  displaying  the  fish.  The  eager,  crowd- 
ing babies  are  invited  to  thrust  their  heads  into  the 


Home    Life 

pouch  and  help  themselves.  And  how  they  prod 
and  poke  about  among  the  morning's  catch,  to  make 
the  best  selection  possible !  It  is  a  wonder  the 
skinny  pouch  is  not  torn  asunder  by  such  thrusts 
and  stabs  as  the  ill-mannered  little  gourmands  give 
it.  No  sooner  is  the  family  larder  emptied,  and  the 
parent's  back  is  turned  to  refill  it,  than  the  dis- 
satisfied youngsters  begin  to  squabble  over  the  con- 
tents of  one  another's  pouches.  Their  greed  seems 
even  more  insatiable  than  their  appetites. 

The  hawks,  owls,  ospreys  and  some  other  birds 
should  make  the  best  of  stepmothers,  so  bountifully 
do  they  provide  for  their  nurseries.  Mice,  muskrats, 
eels,  small  fish,  young  rabbits,  rats,  woodcock  and 
grouse,  weighing  over  eighteen  pounds  in  the  aggre- 
gate, were  the  surplus  food  removed  from  the  nest 
of  a  pair  of  horned  owls,  wherein  two  owlets  only 
had  to  be  supplied.  Some  birds  of  prey  heap  food 
about  their  offspring  until  they  can  scarcely  see  over 
the  piles.  Owls  choose  the  brains  only  of  most  of 
their  captives  as  food  for  their  babies. 

A  remarkable  provision  is  made  for  young 
pigeons  during  the  first  week  of  their  lives.  When 
the  squabs  thrust  their  bills  into  their  parents'  throats 
to  be  fed,  there  arises  what  is  erroneously  called 
"pigeon's  milk"  from  the  crops  of  both  the  father 
and  the  mother.  This  secretion,  formed  from  the 
peeled  lining  of  the  parents'  crop — a  result  following 
incubation — gradually  becomes  mixed  with  regur- 
gitated food  as  the  squabs  grow  older,  and  it  ceases 
only  when  their  digestion  is  strong  enough  to  dis- 
pense with  baby  diet.  Apparently  this  strange 
secretion  is  peculiar  to  the  pigeon  tribe. 

77 


How   to    Attract    the    Birds 

LOWER  AND  UPPER    CLASSES 

The  labour  involved  in  rearing  a  family  differs, 
of  course,  with  the  species  by  reason  of  physical 
conditions,  temperament,  and  environment.  Some 
birds  of  the  lower  orders  have  little  required  of 
them  by  Nature,  while  others,  more  highly  organized, 


A  precocial  grouse  chick 

are  enslaved  by  family  cares  as  if  they  were  afflicted 
with  the  New  England  conscience.  But,  generally 
speaking,  there  are  only  two  classes:  the  lower  or 
precocial  birds,  including  those  which,  fully  clothed 
and  wide  awake  when  hatched,  are  able  to  run  or 
swim  at  once  and  pick  up  their  own  living  like  our 
domestic  fowls,  ducks,  Bob  Whites,  grouse,  plover 
and  snipe ;  and  the  altricial  birds — those  which  come 
into  the  world  blind,  naked  and  helpless,  or  nearly 

78 


Home   Life 


so 


like  the  heron,  kingfisher,  woodpecker,  robin, 
and  all  our  song  birds.  The  precocial  ruffed  grouse 
develops  from  an  egg  that  is  large  in  proportion  to 
the  size  of  the  mother's  body,  the  heavy  yolk 
nourishing  the  young  bird  during  eighteen  days  of 


Blind,  naked  and  helpless  altricials.     Young  blue-birds 

incubation  and  even  after,  whereas  the  altricial  vireo 
lays  a  very  small  egg  that  hatches  in  one  week.  But 
even  precocial  and  altricial  birds  of  the  same  size 
in  maturity  may  have  come  out  of  shells  that  differ 
as  greatly  as  a  silver  dollar  differs  from  a  quarter. 
And  the  length  of  the  period  of  incubation  is  in 
nearly,  if  not  exact,  ratio  to  the  size  of  the  egg. 
The  largest  bird's  egg  we  know,  the  ostrich's,  re- 

79 


How   to   Attract   the    Birds 

quires  forty  days,  sometimes  a  full  six  weeks,  to  hatch. 
As  in  all  arbitrary  divisions,  it  is  not  always  possible 
to  draw  a  sharp  dividing  line.  Between  precocial 
and  altricial  birds,  innumerable  gradations  occur. 

Among  the  lower  bird  forms,  polygamy  being 
common,  there  can  be  no  home  life,  and  it  is  for- 
tunate these  chicks  are  independent  little  creatures 
from  the  first.  Indeed,  it  was  John  Fiske  who 
contributed  to  science  the  fact  that  the  advancement 
of  all  creatures — not  of  the  human  race  alone — has 
been  measured  by  the  prolongation  of  the  period  of 
infancy.  The  longer  the  young  are  dependent  on 
both  parents,  the  stronger  the  tie  becomes  between 
mates,  the  more  prolonged  and  beautiful  the  home 
life  with  all  its  strengthening  physical  and  moral  in- 
fluences making  for  the  uplift  of  the  species,  until, 
among  civilized  humans,  home  living  becomes  a  life 
habit,  far  outlasting  the  presence  of  children  beneath 
the  roof.  Let  the  so-called  advanced  woman,  with 
her  unscientific  notions  of  a  readjustment  of  the 
partition  of  labor  between  the  sexes,  remember  that 
the  males  among  the  ostrich  tribe,  most  nearly  re- 
lated to  the  reptiles,  take  entire  charge  of  the 
young.  Certain  plover  fathers,  too,  and  phalaropes 
attend  to  nursery  duties,  even  to  sitting  on  the  eggs, 
leaving  their  wives  free  to  waste  their  strength  on 
clubs,  pink  teas,  or  whatever  may  be  the  equivalent 
among  "  advanced "  feathered  females.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  selfish,  dandified  drakes  of  some  of 
our  wild  ducks  desert  their  mates  as  soon  as  the 
first  egg  is  laid,  lest  any  domestic  duties  might 
be  demanded  of  them;  nor  do  they  rejoin  their 
families  until  the  ducklings  are  educated  and  fully 

80 


Home    Life 

able  to  fly.  By  way  of  apology  for  such  neglect  it 
is  said  that  a  drake  retires  necessarily  to  shed  his- 
wedding  garment,  and  that  by  the  time  the  duck- 
lings' education  begins  their  father  is  apt  to  be  so 
denuded  of  feathers  as  to  be  not  only  useless,  but  a 
positive  drag  on  the  family,  since  he  cannot  fly.  In 
very  rare  instances  could  this  be  true.  One  has  only 
to  watch  a  hen  care  for  her  chicks  to  realize  that 
even  precocial  birds  need  the  guardianship  of  at 
least  one  parent.  Devoted  little  Bob  White,  with  a 
fidelity  rare  among  precocials,  is  a  model  husband 
and  father,  volunteering  to  take  entire  charge  of  the 
family,  while  Mrs.  White  sits  on  the  second  set  of 
eggs.  When  she  leads  forth  the  new  brood  to  be 
educated  in  wood  lore  with  their  more  advanced 
brothers  and  sisters,  the  bevy  thenceforth  enjoys  an 
ideal  family  life.  Roving  through  the^grain  fields, 
underbrush  and  stubble,  the  large  family  party  keeps 
close  together,  especially  at  night  when  parents  and 
chicks  huddle  into  a  compact  group,  tails  toward 
the  centre,  one  of  the  number  always  remaining  on 
guard  to  warn  the  sleepers  of  approaching  danger. 
Such  prolonged  devotion  among  the  quail  is  the 
more  beautiful  in  birds  closely  related  to  the  poly- 
gamous, indifferent  barn-yard  rooster  and  to  the 
turkey  gobbler,  from  whom  his  mate  runs  away  to 
hatch  and  rear  her  young  lest  they  fall  victims  to 
their  father's  fits  of  jealous,  murderous  rage. 


PROGRESS   THROUGH    HOME   LIFE 

The  more  that  the  home  life  of  the  birds  means 
to  them,  the  higher  have  they  ascended  in  the  evo- 

81 


How  to  Attract   the    Birds 

lutionary  scale,  the  more  pains  they  take  to  build  a 
practical,  beautiful  nest,  the  more  attached  they 
become  to  it,  to  their  mates  and  helpless  young ;  so 
that  if  there  were  not  a  few  prominent  exceptions 
among  precocial  birds  one  might  almost  say  that 
domestic  virtues  and  true  domestic  bliss*  are  mono- 
polized by  the  altricials.  However,  among  the 
latter  it  by  no  means  follows  that  conjugal  devotion 
necessarily  extends  beyond  a  single  nesting  season. 
Few  birds,  indeed,  seem  to  enjoy  the  society  of  their 
mates  the  whole  year  through ;  and  we  have  seen 
that  degenerates,  like  the  cowbird,  occur  in  the 
most  respectable,  altricial  families.  Even  the  eagle, 
which  mates  for  life,  appears  to  care  less  for  the 
partner  of  his  joys  and  sorrows  after  the  annual 
brood  is  carefully  reared,  than  he  does  for  his  eyrie, 
just  as  his  relative,  the  .osprey  or  fish  hawk,  which 
also  remains  faithfully  wedded  to  one  mate  till  death 
parts  them,  appears  to  love  nothing  in  the  world 
quite  so  much  as  the  great  bundle  of  sticks,  every 
year  of  greater  bulk,  which  they  build  in  some  tree 
top  near  the  shore.  Indeed  he  thinks  it  no  shame 
to  snatch  the  fish  from  his  wife's  talons  and  eat  it 
himself.  To  see  a  pair  of  loving  little  downy 
woodpeckers  at  work  in  turn  excavating  their  hollow 
home,  or  the  mother  feeding  their  young  while  the 
father  considerately  goes  in  search  of  food  for  her 
when  she  is  too  tired  to  hunt  for  her  own  dinner, 
one  might  think  that  here,  at  least,  was  devotion 
enough  to  last  a  lifetime ;  but  when  the  little  wood- 
peckers have  flown  and  winter  nights  are  long  and 
cold,  it  is  Mr.  Downy  alone  who  occupies  the 
sheltered  cozy  home  in  the  tree  trunk,  leaving  his 

82 


The  home  of  a  pair  of  downy  woodpeckers 


Home    Life 

wife  to  excavate  another  shelter  or  shift  for  herself 
as  best  she  may. 

"THEN,   IF   EVER,    COME    PERFECT   DAYS" 

While  it  is  true  that  manners  improve  steadily 
the  higher  birds  ascend  in  the  evolutionary  scale; 
that  hen-pecked  husbands  are  treated  with  more 
consideration,  overworked  wives  with  greater  respect 
and  even  tenderness  until  burdens  become  more 
evenly  shared  by  both  mates,  and  such  refinements 
as  song  develop  to  express  the  highest  emotions  of 
which  a  bird  is  capable,  nevertheless  ideal  devotion 
is  short  lived,  confined  as  it  is  to  the  nesting  season. 
Home  life,  worthy  of  the  name,  occupies  but  a  frac- 
tion of  the  birds'  year.  After  the  young  are  reared, 
nests  are  usually  deserted,  and  the  old  birds  go  off  to 
moult  and  mope.  When  new  feathers  are  grown,  it 
is  time  for  most  of  them  to  gather  in  flocks  and  pre- 
pare for  the  autumn  migration  to  warmer  climes. 

But  in  June,  home  life  in  all  its  brief  duty  is  at 
its  height;  now  is  the  best  time  in  all  the  year  to 
really  know  the  birds.  And  it  is  never  necessary  to 
look  far  before  finding  some  happy,  feathered  neigh- 
bours ;  yet  if  you  intrude  upon  their  home  life  and 
frighten  the  parents  away,  another  tragedy  of  the 
nest  may  be  added  to  the  long  chapter.  A  young 
girl  from  the  city  who  was  thoughtless  enough  to 
wear  a  stuffed  sea-gull  on  the  front  of  her  hat,  stood 
on  the  piazza  railing  of  a  certain  farmhouse  to 
peep  in  the  nest  of  a  phoebe  that  had  built  under 
the  eaves.  With  a  piteous  cry  the  startled  little 
mother  sprang  from  her  nest,  fluttered  an  instant, 

85 


How   to   Attract    the    Birds 

then  dropped  onto  the  piazza  floor  dead  from  fright. 
The  conscience-stricken  girl  ripped  that  gull  off  her 
hat  at  once,  but  five  cold  little  eggs  followed  it  to 


Five  cold  little  eggs  followed  it  to  the  ash  barrel 

the  ash  barrel  the  next  day.      Now  she  watches  the 
birds  from  a  distance  through  an  opera  glass. 


WHEN   CHARACTER   TELLS 

One  might  tell   no  end  of  stories  to  show  how 
the    birds,  like  human    parents,  fail   or   succeed   in 

86 


Home    Life 

training  their  young.  Watch  some  over-indulgent 
little  sparrow  mother,  harassed  by  the  most  spoiled 
of  children  as  large  as  she  and  twice  as  greedy, 
which  follow  her  about,  drooping  their  wings  to 
feign  helplessness,  teasing  for  food  that  they  are  per- 
fectly able  but  too  lazy  to  collect.  Daring,  aggres- 
sive, impertinent  to  others,  the  English  sparrows  are 
especially  weak  in  the  presence  of  their  children. 
On  the  other  hand,  many  birds  are  strict  disciplin- 
arians and  do  not  hesitate  to  enforce  their  commands 
with  a  vigorous  slap  of  the  wing. 

It  is  in  his  family  relations  that  a  bird's  true 
character  may  be  read  most  plainly-.  The  kingbird, 
which  usually  shows  only  the  pugnacious  side  of  his 
disposition  to  the  world,  fearlessly  dashing  after  the 
largest  crow  to  drive  him  away  from  the  sacred 
precincts  of  home,  reserves  his  lovable  traits  for  the 
family  circle.  No  dragon-fly  he  captures  on  the 
wing  is  too  choice  to  deny  himself  for  the  benefit 
of  his  babies,  or  too  large,  apparently,  to  be  crammed 
down  their  throats.  In  June,  neither  the  brilliant 
scarlet  tanager  nor  the  gorgeous  Baltimore  oriole 
hesitates  to  help  his  inconspicuous  mate  rear  their 
brood  for  fear  his  tell-tale  coat  may  invite  destruc- 
tion from  the  passing  gunner.  In  June,  fear  and 
selfishness  alike  are  overcome  by  love.  If  you  will 
focus  the  opera  glasses  on  the  nest  to  which  the 
oriole's  rich,  continuous  song  directed  your  suspicions 
a  few  weeks  ago,  you  will  see  both  father  and  mother 
feeding  their  noisy  young  at  the  rate  of  about  twenty 
visits  an  hour. 

A  more  charming  sight  than  an  oriole  family 
feasting  on  basket  worms  among  the  green  spray  of 

87 


How   to   Attract   the    Birds 


The  nuthatches'   first  acrobatic  feats 


a  tamarix  bush  would 
be  hard  to  find,  unless 
you  happily  discover 
a  tiny  humming-bird 
teaching  her  diminu- 
tive babies  how  to 
preen  their  feathers 
daintily  with  their 
needle-like  bills. 
They  are  taught  to 
attend  to  their  toilet 
when  they  are  scarcely 
larger  than  bumble- 
bees. 

It  was  the  rattle 
of  a  male  kingfisher 
informing  his  babies 
hidden  within  the 
bank  of  a  woodland 
stream  that  he  was 
bringing  them  fish 
for  dinner,  that  first 
advertised  his  well- 
concealed  nursery. 
Through  the  long 
tunnel  the  absurd- 
looking,  skinny  little 
birds,  following  one 
another  in  Indian  file, 
would  run  forward 
to  greet  him,  then 
as  quickly  run  back- 
wards to  receive  the 


88 


Home    Life 

fresh  fish.  Does  any  other  bird  possess  this  curious 
ability  to  run  forward  and  backward  like  a  reversible 
steam  engine  ?  Surely  not  unless  it  lives  in  a  narrow 
tunnel. 

The  distracted  oven-bird,  feigning  a  broken  wing 
as  she  crosses  your  path  in  the  woods,  invites  pity  or 
perhaps  destruction,  if  only  you  will  spare  those 
speckled  treasures  which  she  thinks  you  know  must 
be  somewhere  near  although,  but  for  her  frantic 
performance,  you  might  not  have  discovered  the  well- 
concealed  nest.  Sir  Christopher  Wren,  by  the  very 
exuberance  of  his  bubbling,  continuous  song,  betrays- 
the  precious  secret  that  Jenny,  by  her  excited  scold- 
ings, no  better  conceals.  But  the  bobolink,  swaying 
on  a  stalk  of  timothy  in  the  meadow,  and  singing 
with  rollicking  abandon,  is  quite  as  clever  as  the 
ventriloquial  yellow-throat  in  luring  you  from  his 
nest  hidden  in  the  grassy  jungle.  How  jealously 
the  true  bird-lover  likewise  learns  to  guard  nest 
secrets !  The  best  children  in  the  world  can't  be 
trusted  with  them. 

Some  boys  in  North  Carolina  robbed  a  crow's 
nest  and  kept  the  fledglings  hung  in  a  cage  in  their 
garden.  The  distracted  parents  visited  the  place 
hourly,  brought  food  to  their  young  and  tried  in 
vain  to  break  open  the  wire  prison.  Finally,  in 
despair,  they  dropped  poisonous  berries  through 
the  bars :  it  was  evidently  easier  for  them  to  see 
their  babies  dead  than  prisoners  of  the  enemy. 


89 


NATURE'S   FIRST  LAW 


CHAPTER  V 

NATURE'S   FIRST   LAW 

GREAT  was  the  astonishment  of  a  lady  seated 
beside  an  open  window  sewing  one  May  morning 
to  have  a  Baltimore  oriole  fly  from  its  half-built 
nest  in  the  elm  tree  on  the  lawn  to  her  window, 
alight  on  the  sill,  timidly  advance  toward  her  work- 
basket  on  the  window-seat,  and,  while  she  sat 
motionless,  breathless,  to  see  it  tug  at  the  end  of 
some  darning  cotton  and  then  dart  through  the 
window  with  the  cutting  trailing  from  its  bill.  It 
did  not  take  the  delighted  hostess  long  to  prepare 
more  tempting  invitations  for  her  guest  to  return. 
Breaking  off  short  lengths  of  worsteds,  some  bright 
coloured,  some  brownish  gray  natural  wool,  she 
spread  them  about  on  the  casement  Presently  the 
bird  flew  by  the  house  again,  caugnt  sight  of  the 
worsteds,  wheeled  suddenly  about,  alighted  on  the 
shutter,  hopped  to  the  worsteds,  selected  a  gray 
strand  and  flew  off.  Again  the  oriole  returned ; 
again  she  chose  the  natural  wool.  On  the  sixth 
trip  her  feminine  taste  was  apparently  sorely  tempted 
by  a  bit  of  pink  yarn,  for  she  touched  it  twice  with 
her  bill  before  deliberately  carrying  away  the  last 
grayish  piece.  Every  bright-colored  strand  was  re- 
jected. This  set  the  lady  thinking. 

Of  all  our  common  birds,  the  oriole  is  perhaps 
the  most  aesthetic.  That  she  is  far  in  advance  of 
most  of  her  kind  is  shown  by  her  marvellous  skill 

93 


How   to   Attract   the    Birds 

as  a  weaver,  and  further  proved  by  the  attractions 
in  a  mate  that  are  necessary  to  woo  her — the  most 
gorgeous  of  orange  and  black  feathers,  and,  as  if 
they  were  not  enough,  the  most  persistent  of  deli- 
cious songs  throughout  the  courtship.  Certainly,  a 
bird  with  so  keen  an  appreciation  of  form,  colour 
and  music  must  have  some  excellent  reason  for 


Young  whippoorwills  feel  a  sense  of  security  from  protective  colouring 

being  so  quietly  clad  and  for  choosing  somber- 
coloured  materials  for  her  nest.  The  obvious  reason 
explains  also  the  motives  of  very  many  other  birds 
respecting  their  plumage  and  homes. 

A  child  less  wise  than  Macaulay's  schoolboy 
knows  that  various  birds  have  adopted  various 
methods  of  protecting  themselves  and  their  young, 
about  whom  they  are  even  more  concerned,  every 
species  having  some  special  method  of  its  own.  By 
far  the  greatest  number,  however,  depend  chiefly  on 

94 


Nature's    First   Law 

the  protective  colouring  of  their  plumage,  and  the 
more  closely  it  harmonizes  with  their  surroundings 
the  more  likely  are  they  to  escape  the  ever-watch- 
ful eyes  of  their  foes.  Naturally,  it  is  the  female 
which  requires  the  greater  protection,  for,  as  we 
have  just  seen,  it  is  she  who  builds  the  nest  in  the 
great  majority  of  cases,  covers  the  eggs  and  cares  for 
the  young,  often  with  little  help  from  her  mate. 
His  chief  business  in  life  is  to  woo  and  win  her, 
therefore  on  him  Nature  lavishes  her  choicest  gifts 
of  plumage  and  song,  even  if  she  sometimes  skimps 
on  his  beauty  of  character. 

The  oriole,  more  than  any  other  of  our  brightly 
coloured  birds,  has  learned  to  confide  in  man,  living 
on  terms  of  neighbourly  intimacy  with  him;  and, 
finding  itself  comparatively  safe,  it  has  lost  the  fears 
that  once  must  have  beset  all  conspicuous  birds/ 
Yet  there  is  need  for  the  mother  oriole  to  reflect  in 
her  feathers  the  olive  green,  soft  grayish  brown  and 
yellow  of  the  leaves,  twigs  and  sunlight  she  lives 
among.  She  still  swings  her  cradle  from  the  tip  of 
a  high  branch  where  small  boys,  cats,  red  squirrels 
and  snakes  fear  to  dangle,  and,  in  regions  where 
hawks  are  common,  she  makes  the  felt  pouch  deep 
enough  to  conceal  her  while  she  broods. 

The  mate  of  the  brilliant  scarlet  tanager  likewise 
mimics  with  her  clothes  the  sunny  green  light  of 
the  tree  tops.  Except  for  the  merest  suspicion  of 
blue  in  her  plumage,  one  would  never  suspect  the 
indigo  bunting's  dingy  brown  little  mate  of  belong- 
ing to  him.  She,  like  her  sparrow  cousin  of  the 
dusty  roadsides  and  dry  fields,  looks  of  the  earth, 
earthy,  while  he,  to  win  her,  boldly  dares  to  wear 

95 


How   to   Attract    the    Birds 

a  deeper  blue  than  heaven  among  the  glistening 
verdigris  tints  of  his  coat.  Nor  are  any  telltale 
feathers  worn  by  the  wives  of  our  most  brilliant 
warblers,  the  blackburnian  and  the  redstart,  which 
must  instantly  arrest  the  dullest  eye  when  they  flash 


Young  grouse  confident  they  are  hidden  from  the  camera  man 

glowing  bits  of  flame  and  salmon  among  the  deep 
shadows  of  their  favourite  evergreens.  The  robin 
merely  wears  a  deeper  red  on  his  breast  than  his 
mate.  Such  accenting  of  colour  at  the  nesting 
season  in  males  that  are  otherwise  similar  to  the 
females  is  common  when  neither  bird  has  much  to 
fear  from  brilliancy  of  hue.  Male  woodpeckers 
always  wear  more  or  less  red  on  their  heads,  literally 

96 


Nature's   First  Law 

setting  their  caps  for  a  bride.  The  English  sparrow 
need  attempt  nothing  more  showy  than  a  black 
cravat  to  impress  his  easily  pleased  sweetheart. 

Young  birds  of  either  sex  and  of  many  species 
usually  look  like  their  mother  when  there  is  any- 
thing to  be  lost  by  following  their  father's  shining 
example.  In  the  latter  case  young  males  come  into 
their  splendid  heritage  of  feathers  by  degrees,  that 
they  may  be  as  inconspicuous  as  possible  while 
learning  the  ways  of  this  wicked  world — probably 
not  because  their  heads  might  be  turned  before 
maturity.  Thus  it  takes  the  purple  finch  two  years 
to  perfect  his  raspberry  colour,  and  during  his  youth 
he,  too,  looks  sparrowy,  betraying  his  kinship. 
Partly  because  the  plumage  of  no  group  of  birds 
is  more  admirably  protective  in  their  environment, 
the  sparrows  are  inheriting  the  earth. 

WHAT   BEAUTY   COSTS 

Necessarily,  every  bird  has  the  means  to  conceal 
or  defend  itself,  or  to  escape  from  its  natural  foes; 
but  when,  after  ages  of  natural  selection,  especially 
beautiful  feathers  developed  on  many,  neither  shot- 
guns nor  milliners  had  entered  into  the  birds'  cal- 
culations. How  could  the  snowy  white  heron  of 
the  Gulf  States  have  foreseen  that  the  exquisite 
plumes  (aigrettes)  that  he  wears  on  his  back  as  a 
wedding  decoration  would  some  day  be  transferred 
to  the  unthinking  heads  of  vain  women  in  such 
enormous  numbers  as  to  cause  the  extermination  of 
his  species?  And  on  the  face  of  it,  would  it  not 
seem  ridiculous  for  any  woman  to  wish  to  wear  a 

97 


How   to    Attract    the    Birds 

stuffed  parrot  on  her  hat?     Yet  the  Carolina  parro- 
quet,  which  was  once  common  even  as  far  north  as 


m 


Letting  his  chivalry  outweigh  his  prudence.     Cardinal  near  nest 

New  Jersey,  has  been  practically  annihilated  for  no 
more  worthy  end.  The  wonder  is  that,  in  spite  of 
a  slaughter  of  the  innocents  repeated  year  after 


Nature's    First   Law 

year,  there  should  now  be  any  birds  left.  But  so 
rapidly  has  public  sentiment  in  favour  of  protection 
developed,  in  the  last  decade  especially,  that  there  is 
already  a  perceptible  increase  in  the  numbers  of 
birds  around  our  homes.  "The  earnest  expectation 
of  the  creature"  has  not  waited  wholly  in  vain  "for 
the  manifestation  of  the  sons  of  God." 

"No  longer  now  the  winged  habitants 
That  in  the  woods  their  sweet  lives  sing  away, 
Flee  from  the  form  of  man ;  but  gather  round 
And  preen  their  sunny  feathers  on  the  hands 
Which  little  children  stretch  in  friendly  sport 
Toward  dreadless  partners  of  their  play. 
.       .,      .       .'      _.     '  .       .  '    .       .       Happiness 
And  science  dawn,  though  late,  upon  the  earth." 

We  are  wont  to  think  of  altruism  as  confined  to 
the  human  species  alone.  Many  conspicuously 
berutiful  birds — even  those  brilliant  targets  for  the 
gun  and  sling-shot,  the  Baltimore  oriole,  the  scarlet 
tanager  and  the  cardinal — risk  their  lives  to  carry 
dainties  to  brooding  mates  and  help  them  rear  the 
young.  The  rose-breasted  grosbeak,  frequently  let- 
ting chivalry  get  the  better  of  prudence,  actually 
sits  on  the  nest  to  relieve  his  plain  little  sparrow- 
like  spouse. 


A  CHANGE  OF  CLOTHES 

Fine  feathers  having  been  given  many  male 
birds  for  courting  purposes  only,  why  should  not 
some  of  the  hunted  creatures  seek  protection  in 
quiet  clothes  when  the  nesting  season  ends?  Many 
do.  All  birds  undergo  at  least  one  molt  a  year; 
those  that  put  on  a  special  wedding  garment  must 
molt  twice. 

99 


How   to   Attract    the    Birds 

After  family  cares  are  over  and  our  rollicking, 
tuneful  bobolink  has  stopped  singing — and  he  is  the 
first  to  become  silent — he  changes  his  beautiful 
black,  white  and  buff  suit  for  a  winter  one  of 
streaked  brown  like  his  mate's,  because  they  will  go 
South  to  live  among  the  ripe  brown  grasses  and 
sedges.  In  spite  of  Nature's  kindly  protective 
colouring,  thousands  of  bobolinks  (reedbirds,  so- 
called)  fall  a  prey  to  pot-hunters  every  autumn  when 
the  best  beefsteak  costs  only  twenty  cents  a  pound, 
and  it  takes  a  dozen  plucked  reedbirds  to  make  a 
handful ! 

Who  that  did  not  know  him  the  year  round 
would  recognize  the  bright-yellow,  black-winged 
little  goldfinch  of  sunny  pastures  after  he  has  ex- 
changed his  nuptial  clothes  for  the  drab-brown 
family  dress  ?  So  cleverly  does  it  match  the  colour- 
ing of  weedy  foraging  grounds  after  frost,  that  one 
may  pass  a  flock  of  goldfinches  in  late  autumn 
without  suspecting  there  is  a  bird  in  the  field. 
Except  for  their  waving  flight  one  might  mistake 
them  for  a  flock  of  sparrows. 

Arctic  birds,  like  Arctic  animals,  turn  white  in 
winter  so  as  to  be  scarcely  detected  in  the  snowy 
landscape.  It  is  a  poor  rule  that  won't  work  both 
ways :  white  enemies  are  quite  as  likely  to  approach 
unseen  as  white  prey  is  likely  to  escape.  Occasion- 
ally a  great  snowy  owl  comes  over  the  Canadian 
border, — a  ghostly  apparition  among  our  birds.  The 
ptarmigan,  which  lives  above  the  timber  line  in  our 
western  mountains  as  well  as  at  the  far  north,  is 
white  while  the  snow  lasts,  but  by  the  time  there 
are  eggs  and  chicks  to  be  covered  the  mottled 

100 


Nature's    First   Law 

gray,  black  and  brown  feathers,  which  have  grad- 
ually   taken    the    place   of  the  white  ones,  may  be 


Seasonal  plumages  of  ptarmigan 

From  specimens  in  the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History 
a,  summer,     b,  postnuptial  or  autumn,     c,  winter. 

scarcely    distinguished    from    the    soil    and    stones 
among  which  the  hen  broods. 


RELIANCE   ON   DECEPTION 

Feeling  absolute  confidence  in  the  harmonious 
blending  of  their  feathers  with  their  natural  sur- 
roundings, many  birds  keep  perfectly  still  even  in 
the  actual  presence  of  danger,  thinking  themselves 
overlooked,  as,  indeed,  they  are  apt  to  be.  Another 

101 


How   to   Attract   the    Birds 

advantage  of  deceptive  colouring  is  that  their  prey 
often  come  unawares  within  striking  distance.  The 
bittern  standing  motionless  in  his  marshy  home, 
his  neck  stretched  upward,  looks  far  less  like  a  bird 
when  in  this  attitude  than  like  a  stump  or  snag 
among  the  bushes.  But  look  out  for  his  wing  slap 
aAad  thrust  of  the  sharp  beak  if  he  thinks  his  clever 
deception  has  failed !  A  weapon  intended  to  impale 
frogs  makes  an  ugly  wound  on  the  human  body. 

It  takes  very  sharp  eyes  indeed  to  tell  bird  from 
tree  when  the  nighthawk  flattens  and  stretches  her- 
self lengthwise  along  the  log  or  horizontal  limb, 
with  whose  mottled  colouring  her  own  blends  so 
perfectly.  Certain  rocks  match  not  only  her  plum- 
age but  her  eggs  too,  which  is  why  she  often  chooses 
a  depression  in  such  a  rock  to  cradle  them  when  a 
decayed  stump  or  suitable  site  on  the  bare  ground 
among  dry  leaves  cannot  be  found.  Indeed,  the 
mottled  eggs  of  both  the  nighthawk  and  the  whip- 
poorwill  are  as  difficult  to  detect  as  any  laid,  although 
neither  bird  takes  the  trouble  to  build  a  nest. 

Certain  beach  birds  which  lay  their  eggs  among 
the  sand  and  pebbles  above  high-water  mark  allow 
the  sun  to  do  most  of  the  incubating  while  they  ply 
the  waters  for  food  with  an  easy  mind,  feeling  quite 
sure  that  the  sharpest-eyed  enemy  cannot  detect  their 
treasures  scattered  among  the  shingle.  Gulls  and 
terns,  which  have  favourite  islands  off  our  coast, 
return  to  them  generation  after  generation  to  rear 
their  families.  Colonies  of  terns  choose  a  nesting 
site  on  the  mottled  beach  among  rounded  pebbles 
of  the  same  size,  shape  and  colour  as  their  eggs,  on 
which  one  may  innocently  tread,  so  perfectly  are 

102 


Nature's    First   Law 

they  concealed  while  yet  completely  exposed. 
Young  terns,  when  running  about  the  beach  for 
food,  stop  short  the  instant  danger  threatens  and 
keep  still  instinctively  —  their  colouring  usually 
affords  all  the  protection  necessary. 

Every  sportsman  knows  how  wary  the  wood- 
cock is,  yet  so  confidently  does  the  hen  rely  on  the 
mimicry  of  plumage  amid  the  dry  leaves  and  fallen 
logs  around  her,  that  one  can  place  a  camera 
squarely  in  front  of  her  ground  nest  and  photograph 
her  on  it  without  causing  her  concern  enough  to 
wink  an  eyelid.  There  was  no  need  for  birds  so 
protected  to  build  in  trees.  Seated  among  last  year's 
leaves,  the  brown  ruffed  grouse  feels  sure,  as  well 
she  may,  that  you  can  scarcely  distinguish  her  from 
them.  When  danger  threatens  her  chicks,  the 
youngest  downy  ball  knows  enough  to  stand  or  squat 
motionless,  while  the  mother,  by  feigning  lameness 
or  a  broken  wing,  tries  to  decoy  you  away.  Stand- 
ing even  in  the  midst  of  a  surprised  covey  of  young 
grouse,  who  is  clever  enough  to  count  them  all  ? 


EVERY   FEATHER   MEANS   SOMETHING 

The  most  casual  observer  must  have  noticed 
that  many  birds  are  dark  above  and  lighter  under- 
neath, like  the  cuckoos,  vireos,  flycatchers,  and 
sparrows,  to  mention  only  a  few  groups.  Of  what 
bird,  indeed,  is  the  reverse  true?  This  colouring, 
of  course,  accords  with  a  law  of  optics  whereby 
dark  upper  parts  receiving  the  most  light  appear  no 
darker  when  seen  from  a  distance  than  pale  under 
parts  which  receive  less  direct  light.  The  result, 

105 


How   to   Attract   the    Birds 

so  far  as  birds  are  concerned,   tends  to   uniformity 
and  makes  them  inconspicuous.    His  great  advantage 


A  foe  of  the  air  and  its  victim 


in  this  respect  is  well  known  to  the  dusky  kingbird, 
for  he  calmly  sits  unobserved  on  the  fence  rail  or 
other  point  of  vantage,  waiting  for  an  unsuspecting 

1 06 


Nature's    First   Law 

fly  to  sail  by,  when  off  he  dashes,  clicks  his  bill  over 
his  victim,  and  returns  to  the  same  lookout  to  watch 
for  another. 

As  he  flew  ofF,  you  may  have  noticed  the  white 
band  across  the  end  of  his  tail.  In  common  with 
many  other  birds  that  must  migrate  thousands  of 


Young  Richardson's  grouse  learning  to  perch  above  the  reach 
of  prowling  enemies 

miles  every  year,  he  shows  the  white  feather,  yet 
not  to  his  enemies — for  his  pugnacity  often  amounts 
to  tyranny — but  to  his  friends  that  travel  with  him 
in  flocks.  Were  it  not  for  such  showy  white  signals 
as  the  vesper  sparrow  likewise  wears  in  his  tail,  the 
flicker  on  his  lower  back,  and  various  other  birds 
display  on  tail,  back  and  wings,  many  a  migrant 

107 


How   to   Attract   the    Birds 

would  be  lost,  unable   to  follow   the  travellers  just 
ahead  through  dusk  or  fog. 

When  he  goes  courting,  the  flicker  takes  ridiculous 
pains  to  show  only  his  beauty  marks  in  front  to  the 
well  beloved.  How  silly  feathered  Benedicts  are,  too  ! 
Many  a  modestly  attired  little  bird  is  as  conscious  of 
his  charms  at  the  wooing  season,  and  displays  them 
with  as  much  pride,  as  if  he  were  a  peacock.  In  human 
beings,  touch  is  the  sense  most  acutely  developed ; 
in  animals,  smell ;  in  birds,  sight.  Feathered  lovers 
charmed  the  eye  ages  before  they  appealed  to  the  ear. 

OTHER   MEANS   OF   PROTECTION 

To  insure  themselves  against  being  overtaken  in 
a  chase  on  land,  some  birds,  like  the  ostrich, 
have  developed  extraordinary  powers  of  running 
and  kicking.  The  loon  dives  at  the  flash  of  a  gun, 
several  seconds  before  the  shot  reaches  the  place 
where  he  disappears  into  the  lake.  Chimney 
swifts  and  wild  ducks,  among  others,  travel  on  the 
wing  faster  than  the  fastest  locomotive,  and  woe 
betide  any  weakly  or  maimed  bird  that  straggles 
behind  the  flock,  offering  an  invitation  to  dine  that 
hawks  are  riot  slow  to  accept  Indeed,  the  weak 
and  sickly  have  little  chance  in  Nature  when  all 
laws  converge  toward  perpetuating  only  the  best 
there  is  in  life.  Beside  their  foes  of  the  air — ma- 
rauding hawks  that  swoop  upon  them  by  day,  and 
stealthy,  silent  owls  that  snatch  the  dreamers  from 
their  perches — prowling  animals  from  mice  to  foxes, 
and  big  and  little  snakes  in  the  grass,  are  ever  seek- 
ing whom  they  may  devour. 

1 08 


Nature's    First   Law 


The  unarmed  turkey  vultures  or  buzzards,  so 
common  in  our  Southern  States,  keep  adversaries 
away  by  the  foul  trick  of 
disgorging  over  them  the 
contents  of  their  carrion- 
filled  stomachs.  Roosters 
fight  with  spurs;  eagles 
and  hawks  with  beak  and 
talons;  geese  and  other 
birds  still  strike  as  effect- 
ive a  blow  with  their 
wings  as  did  those  which 
wore  ivory  spurs  long 
ago.  Even  the  tiny  hum- 
ming-bird is  a  desperate 
fighter  and  will  longe  his 
rapier-like  bill  at  a  rival 
like  any  duelist.  The 
largest  animal  fears  hav- 
ing his  eyes  put  out  by 
the  pecks  of  the  smallest 
bird.  Why  should  the 
guilty  crow  fly  away 
from  the  outraged  king- 
bird's nest  at  his  fastest 
speed  if  not  that  the 
big,  powerful  thief  fears 
blindness  from  the  stabs 
of  the  infuriated  little 
parent  dashing  about  his 

head  in  hot  pursuit  ?  No  bird  is  so  poor  as  to  be 
without  some  method  of  self-defense.  The  tree  of 
life  in  Nature,  as  in  Eden,  must  be  guarded. 

109 


An  egg-sucker.     A  foe  of  the  ground 


How    to    Attract    the    Birds 

ACCUSE   NOT   NATURE,    SHE   HATH   DONE   HER 
PART;    DO   THOU    BUT   THINE" 


Woodcock  on  nest  showing  protective  colouring.     The  beak  is  ever  stuck 
under  twigs  and  straws  till  it  looks  much  like  them 

Certainly,  birds  banded  together  for  mutual  pro- 
tection as  instinctively  as  ever  men  did,  yet  through 
men  have  come  the  chief  failures  of  their  flocking 
habit.  Enormous  flocks  of  wild  pigeons,  consisting 
of  millions  of  birds,  so  many  that  they  darkened 
the  sky,  were  a  not  uncommon  sight  in  this  land 
of  liberty  less  than  fifty  years  ago.  But  because 
pigeons  nested  in  vast  roosts,  they  were  easily  netted 
and  slaughtered  wholesale,  until  it  is  difficult  to  ob- 
tain a  single  pair  of  these  exquisite  birds  for  museum 
specimens  to-day.  Audubon  found  auks  in  numbers 


no 


Nature's    First   Law 

beyond  computing  around  the  gulf  of  St.  Lawrence. 
But  when  a  bird  lays  only  one  egg  a  year  as  the  auk 
did,  and  when  lawless  men  not  only  robbed  a  colony 
of  all  its  eggs  but  clubbed  thousands  of  old  birds  to 
death,  extinction  followed  speedily.  Far  better  for 
pigeons  and  auks  had  they  scattered  themselves  over 
a  wide  area  and  had  pairs  nested  apart.  Better,  too, 
for  their  race,  if  instead  of  prolonged  grief  over  a 
lost  mate  they  had  followed  the  example  of  the 
happy-go-lucky  English  sparrows. 

A  pair  of  these  prolific  little  pests  began  to 
build  in  the  shutter  of  a  New  Jersey  country  house. 
The  ornithologist  who  lived  there  shot  the  male, 
but  in  less  than  an  hour  the  widow  returned 
triumphantly  with  his  successor.  He  likewise  was 
promptly  killed,  and  so  was  the  third  mate  and  the 
fourth,  and  so  on  and  on  until  sixty  cheerful  volun- 
teers had  been  ensnared  to  their  death  through  the 
charms  of  the  equally  cheerful  widow.  Of  course, 
the  ornithologist  claims  that  he  did  this  execution 
purely  in  the  interests  of  science! 


in 


SONGS    WITHOUT    WORDS 


CHAPTER   VI 
SONGS    WITHOUT   WORDS 

ANATOMY  shows  us  that  the  lower  larynx,  the 
syrinx  or  voice  organ  of  singing  birds,  is  the  most 
marvelous  musical  instrument  known,  not  excepting 
the  prima  donna's  throat;  that  this  organ,  which  is 
of  the  simplest  form  in  birds  of  the  lower  orders, 
became  more  and  more  intricately  complex  the  more 
highly  birds  developed,  for  song  is  of  comparatively 
late  achievement  in  their  evolution ;  that  the  music 
which  enchants  us  comes  from  where  the  bronchial 
tubes  fork  into  the  upper  lungs;  that  a  modulating 
apparatus,  consisting  of  various  kinds  and  numbers 
of  bony  half  rings  and  muscles  around  the  tubes  and 
differing  greatly  with  the  different  species,  have 
much  to  do  with  a  bird's  scientific  classification ; 
that,  by  the  automatic  working  of  these  muscles, 
musical  messages  of  changeable  tone  and  increased 
or  diminished  volume  of  sound  may  be  sent  at  will 
through  the  tracheal  sounding  pipe  —  all  this  and 
vastly  more  that  is  anatomical  might  be  told  ;  and 
yet  a  deaf  person,  who  has  never  heard  a  bird  sing, 
could  form  absolutely  no  idea  of  its  music. 

"  You  cannot  with  a  scalpel  find  the  poet's  soul, 
Nor  yet  the  wild  bird's  song." 

Or,  let  the  technical  musician,  whose  trained  ear 
catches  the  most  delicate  gradations  of  tone,  attempt 
to  write  down,  for  example,  the  little  house  wren's 


How   to    Attract    the    Birds 

gushing  lyric.  Again,  impossible !  Just  as  there 
are  intervals  in  the  African  negro's  melodies  too 
subtle  to  be  recorded  on  paper,  although  they  are 
caught  by  the  ear  of  each  generation  from  its  pre- 
decessor and  passed  on  correctly  to  posterity,  so  there 
is  an  elusive  quality  in  bird  music  defying  both 
scientific  analysis  and  translation  into  set  musical 
terms.  As  well  try  to  convey  music  itself  through 
a  dictionary's  definitions  of  it  as  to  catch  the  rol- 
licking, bubbling  song  of  the  bobolink  on  a  printed 
page. 

Many  beginners  in  bird  study  write  to  the  orni- 
thologist, asking  him  to  name  the  songster  whose 
music  is  laboriously  described  on  an  enclosed  sheet. 
Staff,  added  lines,  clef,  time,  bars,  notes,  sharps, 
flats,  naturals,  rests,  accents  —  all  are  as  carefully  set 
down  as  if  the  inquirer  were  copying  an  intricate 
Bach  fugue ;  yet  not  once  out  of  ten  times  can  the 
bird  be  named  correctly  by  its  written  song  alone, 
no  matter  how  well  up  in  field  practice  the  orni- 
thologist may  be  :  the  quality  is  lacking,  and  that  is 
the  very  essence  of  the  song.  Lacking  that,  some 
description  of  size,  plumage,  or  habit  must  be 
mentioned  to  aid  identification. 

CALL    THE    BIRDS    TO    YOU 

But  catching  bird  music  by  ear  is  a  different 
matter  from  writing  it.  Every  farmer's  boy  knows 
that  by  crowing  like  his  pet  rooster  he  can  make 
him  reply,  and  that  first  one  cock,  then  another, 
will  echo  the  challenge,  until  every  rooster  in  the 
neighborhood  is  set  to  flapping  his  wings  and  crow- 

116 


A  gorgeous  minstrel — the  Baltimore  oriole 


Songs    Without   Words 

ing  with  all  his  might.  Certain  wild  birds  have 
simple  songs  so  pure  of  tone,  or  so  slowly  delivered, 
or  so  sharply  accented,  that  the  merest  novice  who 
can  whistle  has  little  difficulty  in  imitating  them  well 
enough  to  deceive  even  the  feathered  singer  himself 
into  thinking  that  one  of  his  kind  is  replying  from 
the  wood.  One  can  "whistle  up"  silent  birds,  too, 
trying  first  one  call,  then  another,  to  learn  what 
bird  is  within  hail;  then,  hearing  a  reply  in  the  far 
distance,  bring  the  minstrel  nearer  and  nearer  to 
investigate  the  freaky  song  —  so  like  his  own  and 
yet  so  different!  —  that  curiosity  must  be  satisfied 
by  closer  inspection,  until  he  frequently  gets  near 
enough  to  photograph,  if  not  to  touch.  No  birds 
are  more  readily  attracted  than  the 
friendly  little  chickadees,  whose  three 
very  high,  clear  call-notes,  once  heardr 
are  easily  imitated. 
The  quail  on  the  outskirts  of  the  farm  calls  back  a 
a  cheerful  "bob-white"  to  your  sharp  staccato  whis- 
tle, and  quite  as  promptly  as  if  you  were  a  sentry 
demanding  "Who  goes  there?"  Timid  plover  hid- 
ing in  the  grain  fields  utter  a  plaintive,  almost  petulant 
kill-dee,  kill-dee  to  one  who  can  call  them  by  name. 
The  phoebe  bird,  building  under  the  roadside  bridge 
or  the  rafters  of  your  piazza,  keeps  up  a  monotonous 
pewit  pb&be,  pewit  phcebe  whether  you  ask  his  name 
or  not,  although  even  he  likes  to  hear  it  called. 
His  relative,  the  wood  pewee,  whose  song  in  B-flat 
minor  suggests  a  rather  melancholy  religieux  living 
apart  from  this  wicked  world,  is  quite  ready  to  repeat 
his  "one  sweetly  solemn  thought,"  which  "comes 
to  him  o'er  and  o'er"  -at  your  suggestion.  Indeed, 

119 


How   to    Attract    the    Birds 

nothing  seems  to  daunt  this  pensive  minstrel.  When 
midsummer  silences  nearly  every  other  voice  he  still 
sings  on,  with  the  indigo  bunting  and  the  red-eyed 
vireo.  How  refreshing  is  the  song  sparrow's  cheer- 
ful, merry,  but  alas !  inimitable,  outburst  after  the 
solemn  pewee  !  But  one  soon  learns  that  the  bird 
music  which  really  enchants  us  —  the  bobolink's, 
cardinal's,  thrush's  or  mocking-bird's,  for  example, 
—  can  never  be  imitated  by  human  lips,  albeit  birds 
and  humans  are  the  only  creatures  that  can  sing. 
Andrew  Carnegie  said  he  would  as  lief  shoot  an 
angel  as  a  song-bird,  for  both  must  be  akin  because 
they  sing  and  fly. 

While  a  good  whistler  obtains  satisfactory  results 
by  repeating  after  the  birds  certain  of  the  simpler 
songs  until  they  are  learned  perfectly,  it  is  quite  a 
different  matter  to  so  record  them  on  paper  that 
one  who  had  never  heard  them  before  could  whis- 
tle them  off,  like  ordinary  tunes  from  a  book,  well 
enough  to  deceive  the  feathered  songsters  them- 
selves. I  doubt  if  it  could  be  done.  Take,  for 
instance,  the  white-throated  sparrow's  familiar,  well- 
defined  strain.  When  this  comes  to  be  set  down 
in  cold  type,  no  two  books  in  the  library  record  it 


V 

£2 

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Sivee  .  .  .  eet           Can  - 

a  -  da, 

Can  -  a  -  da,           Can  -  a 

-da, 

I,               /,              Pea  -  bod  -  y, 

Pea  - 

bod-y,           Pea  -  bod  -y. 

alike.  New  Englanders  think  the  bird  devotes  his 
vocal  energies  to  glorifying  "Old  Sam  Peabody," 
while  our  British  cousins,  over  the  border,  are  so 
certain  that  he  sings  the  praises  of  their  land  they 


120 


Songs    Without   Words 

V 

actually  call  him  the  Canada  sparrow.  "What's  in 
a  name?"  All  sorts  of  phrases,  in  words  of  three 
syllables,  have  been  fitted  to  this  strain  in  various 
sections,  yet  however  differently  people  record  the 
song,  it  is  perhaps  the  only  one  written  —  the  one 
out  of  every  ten  submitted  —  by  which  the  perse- 
cuted ornithologist  could  correctly  name  the  bird 
without  further  description.  The  sets  of  triplicate 
notes  identify  it,  not  the  words  which  imagination 
supplies.  But  print  can  convey  no  idea  of  the  ex- 
quisite quality  of  that  high-pitched,  piercing,  sweet, 
tenderly  plaintive  strain.  Whistle  it  from  memory, 
in  the  cool  of  a  spring  day,  in  some  deep  northern 
forest — perhaps  not  one,  but  a  half  a  dozen  white- 
throats  will  pierce  the  evening  stillness,  complimen- 
ting your  poor  performances  as  no  opera  singer 
yet  was  encored. 

HOW   BIRDS    LEARN    TO    SING 

It  is  nature's  only  way  to  teach  sound — by  ear — 
and  still  the  most  exact.  As  a  child  is  born  a  certain 
racial  type  of  linguist  and  learns  to  speak  by  imita- 
ting the  words  in  daily  use  about  him,  so  a  bird 
enters  life  the  kind  of  singer  that  he  is  and  learns  his 
notes  by  imitating  those  of  his  closest  associates. 
Only,  the  more  clever  young  child,  given  an  equal 
opportunity  to  hear  two  languages,  acquires  one  as 
readily  as  the  other;  while  the  bird,  in  a  state  of 
nature,  usually  confines  its  notes  to  the  traditional 
ones  of  its  clan,  although  it  may  hear  the  notes  of 
scores  of  other  species  every  day  of  its  youth.  Cer- 
tain very  young  European  goldfinches,  isolated  from 

121 


How   to   Attract    the    Birds 

others  of  their  kind,  showed  a  decided  tendency 
to  repeat  only  the  notes  of  the  caged  songsters 
about  them ;  still,  they  used  some  inherited  notes, 
too,  and  these,  with  the  inherited  quality  of  voice, 
made  their  song  sufficiently  characteristic  of  the 
species  to  be  recognizable.  Many  more  experi- 
ments are  necessary,  however,  to  prove  with  scien- 
tific accuracy  that  a  bird  even  partially  inherits  his 
song.  We  know  that  expert  trainers  have  taught  the 
bullfinch  to  whistle  "Yankee  Doodle."  The  mock- 
ing-bird is  by  no  means  the  only  mimic.  A  certain 
pet  canary  could  so  perfectly  imitate  the  English 
sparrows  that  came  about  his  cage  on  the  porch  to 
pick  up  the  waste  seed,  that  it  was  only  by  watching 
the  movements  of  the  feathers  on  his  throat  that  one 
could  believe  it  was  he  who  was  amusing  himself  by 
imitating  the  chirpings  and  twitterings  of  an  entire 
sparrow  flock. 

Probably  a  bird  both  inherits  and  acquires  his 
notes  ;  otherwise,  how  could  we  account  for  the  many 
variations  of  the  same  song  rendered  by  different 
birds  of  the  same  species?  No  two  canaries  in  any 
shop  sing  precisely  alike,  although  all  may  have  been 
hatched  in  the  same  peasant's  house  in  the  Hartz 
Mountains.  In  every  case  individuality  reveals  itself 
in  shrillness  or  mellowness  of  tone,  in  the  low, 
sweet,  tender  warble,  or  the  sharp,  almost  vindictive 
roundelay  incessantly  repeated  with  the  evident  de- 
sire to  overpower  all  rivals ;  yet  we  recognize  the 
canary  in  each  song.  To  the  general  characteristics 
of  the  species  we  must  add  individuality  of  tempera- 
ment and  the  training  received  from  the  individual's 
associates  before  we  can  understand  any  bird's  music. 


122 


Songs    Without   Words 

Travelers  in  the  Canary  Islands  say  that  the  wild 
canaries  there  are  by  no  means  so  skilled  musicians 
as  the  caged  singers.  Doubtless  the  bird's  voice  has 
been  improved  by  cultivation  as  much  as  his  feathers, 
which,  originally,  were  greenish  gray  and  brown, 


The  chief  American  songster  —  a  young  Mocking-bird 

when  canaries  were  first  imported  into  Europe  in 
the  sixteenth  century.  Nevertheless,  our  own  wild 
songsters  show  almost,  if  not  quite,  as  much  diversity 
as  the  caged  canaries  when  we  concentrate  our  study 
on  the  music  of  a  single  species. 

How  many  people  who  have  spent  their  lives  in 
the  country  recognize  all  the  songs  and  calls  even  of 

123 


How   to   Attract   the    Birds 

the  robin  ?  Probably  he  is  the  first  bird  we  learned 
to  know  by  name.  Among  the  first  arrivals  and  the 
latest  stayers,  he  lives  on  terms  of  neighborly  inti- 
macy with  us  at  least  two-thirds  of  every  year ;  yet 
the  fact  that  twenty-five  distinct  songs  and  calls  have 
been  recorded  of  a  single  individual  by  one  who  took 
no  pains  to  study  robin  music  in  different  sections  of 
the  country — where  bird  voices  differ  as  greatly  as 
human  dialects — causes  many  people  to  lift  their  eye- 
brows with  an  incredulous  "Is  it  possible?" 

How  his  first  salute  to  spring  electrifies  us  with 
good  cheer!  The  hair -sparrow's  wiry  little  trill 
has  scarcely  roused  the  sleeping  choir  at  dawn 
when  he  begins  a  subdued  warble,  which  gradually 
increases  with  the  morning  light  until,  his  throat 
attuned  and  all  his  powers  fully  alert,  he 
bursts  ac  last  into  the  splendid  exuberant 
performances  which  so  delight  us. 
Everybody  knows  it.  Heard  at  its 
best,  none  is  more  exhilarating 
and  few  are  more  beautiful, 
but  even  his  own  meditative, 
tender,  warbled  even-song  ex- 
cels the  matins.  Then  there 
are  two  less  familiar  strains 
given  before  and  after  rain, 
the  exquisite  love  song  without 
words  yet  perfectly  understood,  a 
call  of  caution  to  his  mate,  a  clear, 
vigorous,  ringing,  military  alarm,  a 
signal  to  take  wing,  a  summons  to  his  comrades 
when  they  have  gathered  in  an  autumn  flock,  a 
self-conscious  brag,  an  outburst  of  temper,  endear- 

124 


Songs   Without   Words 

ing,  coaxing  notes  for  the  young,  scoldings  for  the 
cat,  and  so  on  through  the  gamut  of  his  experiences. 
There  appears  to  be  a  different  vocal  expression 
for  each.  And  he  has  an  old  trick  of  humming 
to  himself  with  his  mouth  closed,  as  if  practicing 
for  public  recitals, — the  most  humorous  perform- 
ance of  all,  if  you  have  the  good  fortune  to  sur- 
prise him  at  it. 

WHY   BIRDS    SING 

A  study  of  farmyard  poultry  reveals  a  surprising 
number  of  call-notes  in  common  use  among  chicks, 
hens  and  roosters,  not  to  mention  the  ejaculations 
reserved  for  such  unusual  occurrences  as  the  sud- 
den swoop  of  a  hawk  or  the  headsman's  axe.  Forty 
distinct  utterances  do  not  exhaust  their  vocabulary. 
Here,  better  than  elsewhere,  we  may  observe  the 
necessity  for  every  call-note  and  its  fitness,  and  apply 
some  of  our  knowledge  to  the  less  accessible  song- 
birds. 

But  a  call  is  quite  different  from  a  song,  and 
was  doubtless  evolved  ages  before  it.  One  is  a 
first  necessity,  the  other  a  highly  desirable  but  sec- 
ondary acquisition  generally  attained  only  by  the 
male.  For  the  same  reason  that  a  rooster  crows — 
to  challenge  his  rivals  or  to  make  a  favorable  im- 
pression on  the  hens  of  his  acquaintance  —  does  a 
bird  sing,  and  the  more  refined  and  beautiful  his 
voice  the  higher  does  he  rank  in  the  books.  Bird 
music  means  vastly  more  than  a  crow,  gobble,  boom, 
or  drumming.  It  indicates  the  triumph  of  the 
higher  nature  over  the  lower;  it  may  become  the 

125 


How   to    Attract    the    Birds 

expression  of  those  qualities  which  we  usually  asso- 
ciate with  soul.  "No  original  water- haunter  or 
ground  -  builder  ever  sang,"  says  James  Newton 
Baskett.  "Every  melody  is  a  march  —  a  command 
to  move  onward  —  to  the  ear  that  can  truly  com- 
prehend it." 

INSTRUMENTAL    PERFORMERS 

For  the  sake  of  advertising  their  location  as  well 
as  to  please,  some  birds  that  can't  sing  resort  to 
curious  expedients.  The  prairie-cock  inflates  two 
loose  yellow  sacs  on  the  sides  of  his  head  that  stand 
out  like  small  oranges.  From  these  he  lets  out 
air  to  produce  a  booming  sound, — powerful,  pene- 
trating like  the  deep  tones  of  an  organ, — which  he 
repeats  again  and  again  until  the  whole  neighbor- 
hood reechoes  and  all  rival  cocks  have  been  chal- 
lenged to  boom  more  loudly  than  he.  Then  all 
assemble,  to  fight  with  beak  and  claws,  on  their 
favorite  "scratching  ground,"  in  the  presence  of  an 
admiring  circle  of  hens.  The  prize-fight  among 
birds  indicates  no  higher  plane  of  development  than 
among  humans.  We  don't  expect  much  of  galli- 
naceous fowls. 

Another  of  these,  the  ruffed  grouse,  usually 
mounts  a  fallen  log,  preferably  one  that  has  served 
many  seasons  as  a  drumming  and  trysting  place. 
At  first  slowly  beating  his  wings,  he  moves  faster 
and  faster,  until  there  is  only  a  blur  where  the 
wings  vibrate  too  rapidly  for  human  sight  to  follow. 
Without  touching  the  log  with  his  wings,  striking 
only  the  air,  he  beats  a  rolling  tattoo,  a  deep,  muf- 

126 


Songs    Without   Words 


fled,  sonorous,   crepitating  whir-r-r-r  that   serves   as 
advertisement,  challenge,  love   song,  and   an  outlet 
to  his  inordinate  vanity  and  vigorous  animal  spirits. 
Every     sportsman 
knows  that  sound 
of    the    drummer 
without  a  drum. 

When  the  night- 
hawk  drops  down- 
ward from  a  great 
height,  his  out- 
stretched wings 
and  tail  create  an 
aeolian  instrument 
which  gives  forth 
the  jarring,  boom- 
ing,whirring  noise 
that  is  more  weird 
than  musical. 

With  the  excep- 
tion of  the  flicker 
— a  law  unto  him- 
self among  his 
clan  —  our  native 
woodpeckers  are 
instrumental  per- 
formers only.  The 
rap-tap-tapping  of 
their  bills  against 
the  tree  trunks  is  as  cheerful  music  as  any  in  the 
spring  woods.  The  sapsucker  hammers  his  vigor- 
ous, impetuous,  staccato  proposal  with  more  sense  of 
musical  values,  perhaps,  than  the  others ;  but  all  are 

I2Q 


The  flicker — our  only  woodpecker  vocalist 


How    to    Attract    the    Birds 

musicians,  though  they  can't  sing  a  note.  Songless 
birds  have  found  various  ways  of  expressing  their 
sentiments.  Some  dance,  some  ogle,  and  none 
is  more  ridiculous  in  his  antics  to  woo  the  well- 
beloved  than  the  flicker,  whose  vocal  accomplish- 
ments are  by  no  means  to  be  despised.  All  the 
woodpeckers  delight  in  sound,  however  produced. 
Hairy  and  Downy  frequently  tap  on  the  tin  roofs 
and  gutters  of  our  houses  simply  because  they 
like  the  noise.  A  pair  of  red-headed  woodpeckers 
reared  their  family  in  a  hollow  tree  next  the  railroad 
track  in  the  station-yard  at  Atlanta,  where  the  smoke 
of  every  passing  locomotive  enveloped  their  house  ; 
but  engineers  let  off  steam  and  do  much  bell-ringing 
when  about  the  yards,  and  these  woodpeckers  evi- 
dently enjoyed  the  din  enough  to  compensate  them 
for  the  smoke  and  publicity. 

To  hear  the  kingfisher  flying  up  stream  advising 
his  mate  that  he  is  coming  home,  one  might  suspect 
that  he,  too,  is  an  instrumentalist,  his  instrument 
being  a  policeman's  rattle.  The  cuckoo  also  has  a 
peculiar  rattle,  kr-r-r-r-r-uck-uck-uck,  suggesting  a 
great  tree-toad  ;  but  neither  of  these  birds  may  be 
used  to  swell  the  short  list  of  instrumental  perform- 
ances. Both  are  vocalists. 

PEERLESS    MUSICIANS 

But  when  we  speak  of  vocalists  no  one  has  in 
mind  either  kingfisher  or  cuckoo,  or  the  screaming 
blue  jay  that  goes  roving  about  through  the  autumn 
woods  with  a  troop  of  noisy  fellows,  or  his  cousin 
the  crow,  or  the  wheezy  grackles  whose  notes  sug- 

130 


An  instrumentalist  with  a  call  like  a  policeman's  rattle. —  Kingfisher 


Songs    Without   Words 

gest  wagon-wheels  in  need  of  axle-crease,  or  the 
uncanny  owls  whose  hoots  make  night  hideous,  or 
strident  hawks,  or  wild  geese  honking  as  they  speed 
high  above  us  in  a  wedge-shaped  flock.  To  him 


The  blue  jay  —  mimic,  ventriloquist,  tease  and  rascal 

that  hath  ears  to  hear  even  these  are  musical.  No; 
the  real  star  performers  of  the  world  are  such  as  buy 
no  castles  in  Wales  with  the  proceeds  of  a  single 
concert  tour,  but  shy,  often  persecuted  creatures, 
which,  like  the  hermit  thrush,  lift  up  their  heavenly 
voices  in  woodland  solitudes  with  only  a  devoted  lit- 
tle mate  for  an  audience.  Love  alone  inspires  these 
highest  attainments.  Neither  for  applause  nor  hope 
of  gain  does  the  mocking-bird  fill  the  southern 

*33 


How   to    Attract    the    Birds 


groves  with  its  enchanting  melody,  or  thrushes  peal 
their  silvery  bell-like  notes  through  northern  woods. 
For  beggar  or  king  the  humble  little  field-sparrow 
makes  no  variations  of  its  exquisite  song.  The  gor- 
ge ou  s  cardinal's 
rich  whistle,  the 
bobolink's  hur- 
ried, tripping  ca- 
denzas, the  wren's 
tuneful  frolic,  the 
vesper-  sparrow's 
hymn -like  bene- 
diction at  close  .of 
day — all  are  free 
as  salvation  !  It  is 
the  unearthly, 
soulful  quality  in  a 
bird's  voice  that 
thrills  one  with 
shivery  creeps  of 
sympathetic  vibra- 
tion. 

WHEN    BIRDS 
SING 

In  February, 
before  we  have 
begun  to  look  for 
pussy-willows  or 
skunk  -  cabbages, 
the  song-sparrow's 
The  wood-thrush  s  w  e  e  t ,  sprightly 

134 


Songs    Without    Words 


"merry  cheer" 
opens  the  concert 
of  bird  music. 
Presently  robins, 
bluebirds,  black- 
birds, and  other 
migrants  return- 
ing from  the  south 
in  advance  of  the 
females,  burst  into 
joyous  songs  of  ex- 
pectancy, every 
day  adding  some 
new  minstrel  to 
the  choir,  until  to- 
ward the  end  of 
spring  the  birds 
are  holding  such  a 
May  festival  as 
Theodore  Thomas 
never  conducted. 
Late  in  the  merry 
month  nearly 
every  throat  that 
can  make  music  is 
rippling,  whistling 
and  warbling  its 
utmost  best;  for  a 
bird's  season  of 
song  usually  corre- 
sponds with  its 
nesting  season.  Some  musicians,  it  is  true,  attune 
their  voices  long  before  the  courting  days,  yet  in 


The  song-sparrow  chooses  a  conspicuous 
perch  for  his  performance 


135 


How   to    Attract   the    Birds 

anticipation  of  them ;  and  they  still  have  enough 
vitality  left  after  they  have  helped  raise  two  broods 
and  have  molted  their  feathers,  to  express  enjoyment 
of  life  in  song.  Either  or  both  of  these  physical 
strains  is  enough  to  stop  some  birds'  melody  alto- 
gether. One  rarely  hears  a  bobolink  after  the  fourth 
of  July.  Few  birds,  indeed,  attempt  to  sing  after 
family  cares  and  midsummer  heat  and  the  growing 
of  new  feathers  deject  their  spirits.  Such  as  continue 
through  these  ordeals  usually  drop  so  many  notes  that 
one  can  scarcely  recognize  the  broken  fragments  of 
their  real  song.  But  after  the  new  suit  of  clothes  is 
well  on,  whether  it  is  joy  in  the  possession  of  them 
or  a  returned  sense  of  physical  well-being,  in  early 
autumn  a  second  singing  usually  begins  —  not  so 
long,  nor  so  exuberant,  nor  so  pleasing,  but  still  a 
welcome  reminder  of  spring  joys. 

THE    DEVELOPMENT    OF    BIRD    AND 
HUMAN    MUSIC 

Whether  the  evolution  of  bird  music  has  paral- 
leled that  of  our  own  is  not  yet  a  settled  question 
among  scientists,  but  a  great  mass  of  evidence  seems 
to  prove  that  it  has  followed  similar  lines,  and  that 
its  tendency  is  still  toward  the  same  ideal.  We 
have  already  noted  that  it  is  the  quality  of  voice, 
not  so  much  the  intervals  of  the  melodic  scale,  that 
differentiates  avian  from  human  music.  That  sense 
of  rhythm  is  variously  developed  among  birds  we 
realize  on  comparing  the  Carolina  wren's  precisely 
emphasized  beats  with  the  jumbled  jargon  of  that 
rollicking  polyglot,  the  Maryland  yellow-throat.  All 

136 


One  of  our  sweetest  though  unappreciated  songsters  —  the  rose-breasted  grosbeak 


Songs    Without   Words 

the  intervals  of  the  major  and  minor  scales  that  we 
can  write,  as  well  as  some  too  elusive  to  record,  are 
used  by  birds  in  perfection  of  tone.  They  employ 
very  effectively  repetitions  of  notes  and  phrases, 
sometimes  so  combined  as  to  produce  a  formal 
theme, — some  birds  of  quite  limited  powers  thus  pro- 
ducing the  most  pleasing  results.  They  trill  on  two 
notes  or  more,  introducing  a  finer  tremolo  than  a 
pipe-organ's.  Antiphonals  are  indulged  in  by  sev- 
eral of  the  tuneful  sparrows,  chewinks  and  meadow- 
larks;  in  short,  they  make  unconscious  use  of  musi- 
cal intervals  and  methods  that  men  have  formulated 
into  laws.  Because  they  are  laws,  we  are  just  be- 
ginning to  realize  that  they  may  be  of  wide  enough 
application  to  include  the  birds'  music.  Above  all, 
there  is  a  purity,  an  exquisite  quality  of  a  bird's 
song,  with  which  no  other  on  earth  is  to  be  com- 
pared. That  music  such  as  theirs  can  be  written 
at  all  in  the  set  forms  that  we  use  for  ours  would 
seem  to  indicate  that  the  lines  of  development  of 
both  are  not  so  divergent  as  one  at  first  might 
suppose.  Foremost  critics  declare  that  the  opera 
and  oratorio  of  the  future  will  be  sung,  like  bird 
music,  without  words. 


WHY    BIRDS    COME   AND    GO 


CHAPTER    VII 
WHY    BIRDS    COME    AND    GO 

WHOEVER  notices  what  is  going  on  in  the  natural 
world  about  him  must  be  impressed  with  the  fact 
that  no  two  months  in  the  year  are  alike  so  far  as 
the  bird  population  is  concerned.  In  winter,  bird 
life  is  at  its  minimum  ;  in  June,  at  its  height ;  and  be- 
tween the  two  extremes  there  is  constant  fluctuation. 
Great  flocks  of  migrants  stream  southward  across 
the  sky  in  autumn.  Then,  if  we  search  the  heavens 
with  a  telescope  on  moonlight  nights,  we  find  the 
vast  procession  stealing  a  march  on  its  watchful  ene- 
mies of  the  day,  some  detachments  moving  slowly, 
laboriously;  others,  like  the  wild  ducks,  at  the  rate 
of  over  a  mile  a  minute.  Hour  after  hour,  both  by 
day  and  by  night,  day  after  day,  week  after  week, 
the  procession  passes  ;  yet  in  the  spring,  doubtless, 
every  one  of  these  birds  that  has  survived  will  reverse 
the  tedious  journey.  With  the  coming  of  warm 
weather  we  waken  every  morning  to  find  in  our 
gardens  birds  that  may  have  been  a  hundred  miles 
away — yes,  or  even  a  thousand — only  the  day  before. 
Chimney  -  swifts  fly  at  almost  incredible  speed. 
Audubon  picked  up  in  Kentucky  a  dead  wild  pigeon 
in  whose  crop  were  berries  that  did  not  grow  nearer 
than  five  hundred  miles  from  his  home,  yet  they 
were  only  partly  digested  !  Why  do  so  many  birds 
attempt  these  wearisome  journeys  twice  a  year? 

H3 


How   to    Attract    the    Birds 

What  relentless  impulse  drives  the  little  travelers 
back  and  forth,  north  and  south,  here  to-day,  away 
to-morrow? 

CONSTANT    FRIENDS    ARE    FEW 

Wherever  you  live  you  will  find  that  some  of  the 
birds  about  you  are  more  or  less  in  evidence  the 
year  round.  If  you  walk  far  enough  you  are  likely 
to  see  a  crow  or  a  sparrow,  for  example,  any  month 


"Crows,  like  the  poor,  are  always  with  us" 

in  the  twelve.  But  other  birds  simply  pass  regularly 
through  your  locality  on  their  spring  and  fall  migra- 
tions, barely  affording  a  glimpse  of  their  feathers  as 
they  hurry  by.  With  such  disdain  are  we  treated  by 
the  majority,  but  not  all,  of  the  warbler  tribe, — 
charmingly-colored,  restless,  dainty  little  sprites 
which  flit  among  the  spring  blossoms  for  a  day  or 

144 


Why    Birds    Come    and    Go 

two  on  their  way  to  Canadian  forests,  where  so  many 
nest.  These  are  the  days  when  one  grudges  every 
moment  that  must  be  spent  in  the  house  ;  such  rare 
guests  do  us  the  honor  to  pause  awhile  at  our  very 
doors,  affording  us,  if  not  an  opportunity  for  inti- 
mate acquaintance,  at  least  the  chance  to  know  them 
again  by  sight.  Within  six  months  increased  num- 
bers of  these  warblers  will  stop  again  for  a  hasty 
lunch  of  insects,  in  the  garden  shrubbery  and  or- 
chard, to  refresh  themselves  on  their  journey  back 
to  the  Gulf  States,  Central  or  South  America  or  the 
West  Indies.  Clever  little  creatures,  thus  to  live  in 
perpetual  summer !  Some  of  the  old  birds  having 
exchanged  their  wedding  clothes  for  more  quiet 
suits,  and  some  of  the  young  ones  not  yet  wearing 
the  feathers  of  maturity  described  in  the  books,  the 
poor  novice  is  often  sadly  bewildered  in  autumn,  by 
not  recognizing  in  its  change  of  clothes  a  species  he 
may  have  identified  easily  in  spring.  He  misses, 
too,  the  characteristic  songs  and  call -notes  of  the 
courting  season ;  because  the  autumn  travelers  are 
mostly  silent,  they  slip  by  unobserved. 

The  migrants,  then,  must  be  classed  among  one's 
fair-weather  friends,  and  these,  like  human  ones, 
alas!  constitute  the  largest  class.  But  no  reproach 
on  the  birds  is  intended  by  this  comparison  :  theirs  is 
a  motive  compelling  desertion  when  conditions  of 
life  become  too  hard  for  endurance  in  our  neighbor- 
hood. Thus  the  robin  and  bluebird  remain  con- 
stant residents  in  some  favored  parts  of  the  United 
States,  while,  in  others,  conditions  make  of  them  sum- 
mer residents  only.  You  may  know  the  wood-thrush 
as  a  migrant,  while  to  me  he  may  be  a  near  neigh- 

H5 


How    to    Attract    the    Birds 


bor  from  May  to  October ;  for  the  bird  population 
differs  in  different  localities,  though  they  may  be  not 
more  than  ten  miles  apart,  just  as  surely  as  it  differs 
from  month  to  month  everywhere.  Why,  you  see 
different  birds  at  different  hours  of  the  same  day  ! 

That  is  one  of  the  rea- 
sons why  bird  study  is  of 
perennial  interest;  there 
is  about  it  always  the 
charm  of  variety  and  the 
unexpected. 

No  sooner  have  the 
summer  residents  and 
the  more  tender  mi- 
grants deserted  us  in  the 
fall  than  certain  hardy 
birds  regularly  appear; 
some,  like  the  chicka- 
dees, merely  from  deep 
woods  where  they  have 
nested;  others,  like  the 
sea-gulls  in  our  harbors 
and  the  Great  Lakes,  from  inaccessible  nesting  islands 
off  the  northern  coast ;  still  others  from  the  region 
of  the  north  pole.  But  whether  the  so-called  win- 
ter birds  come  from  the  next  county  or  from  the 
arctic  regions,  they  are  in  evidence  about  our  homes 
only  at  the  most  inclement  season.  With  the  return 
of  the  sun,  bringing  joy  and  abundance  in  its  train, 
away  go  chickadees,  nuthatches,  kinglets,  winter 
wrens,  longspurs,  juncos,  snow-buntings,  crossbills, 
redpolls,  shrikes  and  gulls, —  not  to  be  seen  again 
until  the  frost  or  snowfalls  of  next  autumn. 

146 


"Where  Chickadees  delight 
to  dangle" 


Why    Birds    Come    and    Go 
HOW  IS  THEIR   CALENDAR    REGULATED? 

In  spite  of  this  constant  shifting  of  the  feathered 
population,  there  is  astonishing  system  and  punctu- 


"A  cold  exposure" — Redpoll  on  a  cedar  tree 

ality  of  appearance  and  disappearance  of  the  greater 
part  of  it,  one  discovers  on  keeping  a  bird  diary, 
which,  by  the  way,  is  even  more  interesting  than 
Pepys's.  For  thirty  years  the  purple  martins  reached 
a  certain  home  set  up  for  their  benefit  in  a  New 
Jersey  garden,  on  the  26th,  27th,  or  28th  of  April, 

H7 


How   to    Attract    the    Birds 

leaving  it  as  regularly  on  one  of  four  dates  early  in 
September.  Sportsmen  know  almost  to  a  day  when 
ducks,  plover  and  snipe  may  be  found  in  the  marshes. 
There  are  late  springs  and  early  springs ;  a  belated 
blizzard  may  freeze  back  the  budding  fruit  trees,  rag- 
ing storms  may  retard  the  progress  of  many  a  north- 
bound flock,  but  the  going  and  coming  of  nearly 
all  birds  may  be  reckoned  just  as  certainly  as  the 
coming  of  apple  blossoms.  One  confidently  listens 
for  the  first  bluebird's  song  in  March,  when  pok- 
ing about  in  the  leafless  woods  for  the  first  hepatica. 
When  shad  ascend  the  rivers  from  the  sea,  and  the 
shadbush  stretches  out  fleecy  white  blossoms  from 
the  woodland  borders  with  wild,  irregular  grace, 
then  the  Indians  taught  us  to  expect  the  first 
night-hawk's  uncanny,  mournful,  jarring  sound. 

*- 

FEATHERED    NOMADS 

All  birds,  however,  are  not  so  punctual  in  their 
goings  and  comings  as  a  railroad  express,  by  any 
means.  Some  few  species  habitually  lead  a  gypsy- 
like  existence,  roving  hither  and  yonder,  not  as  fancy 
dictates  altogether,  although  their  movements  cer- 
tainly appear  erratic.  Flocks  of  lisping,  twittering, 
amiable  cedar-waxwings,  clad  like  Quakers  but  hav- 
ing a  rather  frivolous  crest,  may  visit  you  for  a  week 
if  there  are  plenty  of  choke-cherry  and  juniper  trees 
about,  yet  one  may  not  come  again  for  a  year.  In 
addition  to  the  more  or  less  familiar  visitors  whose 
habits  are  known  to  be  roving,  occasionally,  rarely, 
a  total  stranger  to  your  neigborhood  appears.  Some 
extraordinary  natural  phenomenon  in  one  part  of 

148 


Why    Birds    Come    and    Go 

the  world  often  affects  the  bird  population  in  a 
place  very  far  distant,  as  when  a  sooty  tern  belong- 
ing on  the  Florida  Keys  got  caught  in  a  tornado 
and  was  blown  northward  until  it  had  lost  its  reck- 
onings. Finally,  it  was  picked  up  exhausted  in  a 


"Erratic  winter  visitors"  —  White- winged  Crossbills 

Hudson  river  village.  On  some  winter  walk,  that 
rare  apparition,  a  great,  blinking,  snowy  owl,  from 
the  arctic  regions,  may  startle  you,  like  a  ghost 
among  the  evergreens.  Quantities  of  red  crossbills 
came  far  over  the  Canadian  border  a  few  winters 
ago.  Bird  lovers  wrote  each  other  excited  letters 
in  their  joy  at  finding  these  charming,  friendly  little 

149 


How   to   Attract   the    Birds 

strangers  pecking  at  the  seeds  in  the  cones  of  their 
pine  trees.  Cameras  didn't  frighten  them.  It  may 
be  a  decade,  perhaps  a  lifetime,  before  the  severity 
of  the  cold  at  the  north  or  a  driving  storm  sends 
such  numbers  to  us  again.  Doubtless  the  warm 
reception  of  hot-shot  they  received  in  some  places 
had  much  to  do  with  their  sudden  disappearance. 
One  zealous  ornithologist  —  of  all  men  !  —  calmly 
told  of  killing  eighty  crossbills  to  learn  what  kind 
of  food  they  had  in  their  stomachs !  These  are  the 
little  birds  which,  legend  says,  dyed  their  breasts 
crimson  and  twisted  their  bills  awry  in  their  strug- 
gle to  pull  the  nails  from  our  crucified  Saviour's 
hands  and  feet. 

FIVE   DISTINCT   GROUPS 

As  permanent  residents,  summer  residents,  win- 
ter residents,  migrants  and  visitors,  whether  regular 
or  uncertain,  we  may,  then,  classify  the  birds;  but, 
however  their  habits  may  differ,  one  chief  motive 
impels  the  going  and  coming  of  them  all  —  the 
rinding  of  adequate  food.  Perhaps,  in  the  spring 
migration,  this  is  more  for  the  sake  of  the  young 
than  for  the  parents  themselves.  Fish  migrate  to 
spawn,  running  into  harbors  and  rivers  from  the 
sea,  leaping  cataracts  and  mill-dams,  if  need  be,  to 
reach  quiet,  shallow,  warmer  waters,  where  there 
is  greater  hope  of  protection  from  foes  and  more 
suitable  food  for  small  fry  left  to  make  their  own 
way  in  life  without  either  parent  or  guardian.  Prob- 
ably birds  are  influenced  by  similar  considerations 
when  they  migrate. 

150 


Why    Birds    Come    and    Go 

Of  course  the  food  question  incites  the  greater 
part  of  the  activities  in  our  own  world ;  and  be  it 
observed  that  birds  and  other  wild  creatures  seek 
those  places  where  the  food  on  which  life  itself  de- 
pends is  abundant  just  as  unerringly,  with  just  as 
much  intelligence  and  forethought,  as  men  do. 
When  conditions  prove  too  hard  in  Russia,  Italy  or 
Ireland,  a  great  stream  of  human  immigrants  pours 
into  America — greater  in  our  prosperous  years  than 
in  the  lean  periods  of  financial  depression.  When 
the  birds  are  starved  out  of  frozen  Canada  and  the 
northern  states,  they  go  south,  where  the  proverbial 
hospitality  of  that  genial  land  will  be  extended  to 
them  by  nature.  Those  which  can  live  on  pine 
seeds,  insect  eggs,  larvae,  and  grubs  hidden  in  the 
bark  of  trees,  the  dry,  seedy  weed-stalks  that  rear 
themselves  above  the  snow,  the  fish  and  refuse  in 
the  open  waters  of  our  larger  streams,  lakes  and 
harbors,  may  safely  remain  at  the  north  all  winter, 
and  they  do.  But  we  shall  never  find  a  flycatcher 
north  then.  To  escape  competition  from  the  horde 
of  contestants  that  pours  out  of  the  south  in  spring, 
the  winter  residents  beat  a  retreat  on  their  approach. 
Plenty  of  birds  do  not  find  it  necessary  to  shift  their 
residence  farther  than  the  next  state  in  order  to  live 
in  a  land  of  plenty.  Robins  from  Ohio  may  find 
Kentucky  perfectly  satisfactory  as  a  winter  resort. 
Robins,  crows,  and  wild  geese  often  sleep  in  one 
state  and  eat  in  another,  going  and  coming  daily  as 
regularly  as  sunrise  and  sunset  from  one  to  the  other. 
Geese,  which  prefer  to  sleep  a-float,  fly  early  to 
inland  feeding  grounds  to  spend  the  day — that  is, 
if  hunters  are  not  waiting  in  ambush  to  receive  them. 


How   to    Attract   the    Birds 
A   FEW   WONDERFUL   TRAVELERS 

That  it  may  have  the  entire  field  to  itself  and 
escape  the  keen  competition  of  hosts  of  tropical 
relatives  for  the  nectar  and  minute  insects  in  the 
deep-tubed,  brilliant  flowers  that  please  him  best, 
we  have  seen  that  the  ruby-throated  humming-bird 


"A  lean  foraging  ground" 

travels  from  Central  America,  or  beyond,  to  Lab- 
rador and  back  again  every  summer  of  its  inces- 
santly active  little  life.  Think  what  the  journey 
from  Yucatan  even  to  New  England  must  mean 
for  a  creature  so  tiny  that  its  outstretched  wings 
measure  barely  two  inches  across !  It  is  the  smallest 
bird  we  have.  Then  what  must  be  the  size  of  the 
body  itself  beneath  its  dress  of  feathers?  Wherein 

152 


Why   Birds    Come    and    Go 

lodges  the  force  that  propels  it  through  the  sky  al 
a  speed  and  a  height  which  take  it  instantly  beyond 
the  range  of  human  vision? 

"  There  is  a  Power  whose  care 
Teaches  thy  way  along  the  pathless  coast, 

The  desert  and  illimitable  air, 
Lone  wandering,  but  not  lost. 


"He  who  from  zone  to  zone 
Guides  through  the  air  thy  certain  flight, 

In  the  long  way  that  I  must  tread  alone, 
9    Will  lead  my  steps  aright." 

Leaving  our  grassy  meadows  in  August,  the  joy- 
ous, rollicking  bobolinks  go  to  feed  on  the  wild  rice 
in  our  southern  states,  en  route  for  Brazil;  and  some 
may  count  themselves  fortunate  if  they  do  not  end 
their  journey  suddenly  as  reedbirds,  which,  plucked 
and  broiled,  are  served  at  the  epicure's  table. 

As  near  the  north  pole  as  Grinnell  Land,  Gen- 
eral Greeley  found  ring -neck  plovers  nesting  in 
July ;  yet  the  young  birds,  hatched  at  this  late  day, 
were  ready  by  the  end  of  August  to  journey  toward 
the  Amazon  country,  their  winter  resort.  Many 
birds  must  divide  their  residence  between  the  upper 
and  the  lower  half  of  the  globe  to  secure  a  living. 
Sandpipers  travel  between  Alaska  or  Greenland  and 
Patagonia  twice  a  year  as  a  matter  of  course.  Man 
does  not  appear  to  be  only  a  little  lower  than  the 
angels  when  he  is  willing  to  take  advantage  of  the 
tameness  of  these  birds,  which,  because  they  have 
been  reared  in  out-of-the-way  corners  of  the  earth 
where  he  is  practically  unknown,  allow  him  to  ap- 

153 


How   to    Attract   the    Birds 

proach  with  his  gun,  when  their  autumn  flocks  are 
resting  awhile  among  us,  near  enough  to  rake  the 
last  innocent 

HOW    SOME    BIRDS    TRAVEL 

In  spring  some  happy  couples,  already  mated, 
travel  northward  together ;  or,  all  the  males  may 
come  in  one  flock,  a  sort  of  bachelor's  club,  ungal- 
lantly  leaving  the  females  to  find  their  way  alone. 
Then,  how  these  same  bachelors  sing  to  advertise 
their  locality  when  possible  mates  are  expected  to 
arrive  ! 

Different  species  have  different  traveling  meth- 
ods, and  even  the  same  species  does  not  always 
follow  the  same  method  in  spring  and  fall.  Some  of 
the  wild  ducks,  for  instance,  which  go  southward  in 
large  family  parties,  return  in  mated  couples,  very 
tenderly  attached  to  each  other  one  might  think 
who  had  never  observed  the  dandified  drake  calmly 
desert  his  partner  just  as  soon  as  nursery  duties 
threaten  to  interfere  with  his  leisure  and  pleasure. 
The  devoted  phoebe,  in  his  somber  drab  suit,  sits 
about  near  last  year's  nest  very  early  in  spring,  call- 
ing repeatedly  to  a  mate  that  may  be  many  miles 
away;  but  in  a  few  days  how  unerringly  she  finds 
the  old  home,  and  the  faithful  lover  waiting  at  the 
trysting-place  beside  the  bridge  to  welcome  her ! 
The  joy  of  such  reunited  lovers  puts  a  song  into 
the  heart  of  all  beholders. 

When  the  cares  of  a  young  family  beset  them, 
and  when  old  feathers  must  be  replaced  by  new  ones 
during  July  and  August,  birds  are  seldom  sociable. 


Permanent  residents  without  the  flocking  habit  — young  screech  owls 


Why   Birds    Come    and    Go 

The  males  of  only  a  few  species,  that  sleep  in  club- 
like  roosts  even  at  the  nesting  season,  must  be  ex- 
cepted.  Indeed,  so  silent  and  moping  are  the  vast 
majority  when  molting  that  they  seem  to  have  en- 
tirely disappeared.  In  the  course  of  a  walk  through 
the  midsummer  woods  we  may  neither  see  nor  hear 
one.  But  with  the  proud  consciousness  of  new 
clothes  and  the  return  of  energy  with  the  cooler 
weather,  out  they  come  from  their  rest-cure  retreats, 
refreshed  and  even  tuneful  again,  ready  to  welcome 
as  friend  any  bird  of  the  same  feather,  to  collect  into 
family  parties,  or  join  any  passing  band  of  good  fel- 
lows which  receives  not  only  individuals  but  small 
roving  flocks,  one  after  another,  day  after  day,  until, 
perhaps,  many  thousands  so  assemble.  Now  the 
meadows  and  marshes  are  alive  with  swallows,  and  the 
telegraph  wires,  strung  with  them,  look  like  bars  of 
printed  music-scrolls  stretched  across  the  sky.  Now, 
robins,  chewinks,  and  thrushes  congregate  along 
woodland  borders,  to  feast  on  dogwood  or  whatever 
bright  berries  cling  to  the  trees  and  bushes  waiting 
for  just  such  distributing  agents  as  they.  (For  how 
much  of  the  earth's  beauty  are  not  birds,  the  seed- 
carriers,  responsible  !)  Mr.  William  Brewster  de- 
clares that  he  has  found  as  many  as  twenty -five 
thousand  robins  sleeping  together  in  one  roost.  It 
is  well  known  that  crows,  likewise,  roost  in  enormous 
numbers.  At  the  approach  of  cool  weather  even  the 
English  sparrow,  although  at  no  time  a  shy  recluse 
exactly,  becomes  intensely  gregarious.  Great  num- 
bers of  sparrows  —  sometimes  a  sprinkling  of  the 
rarer  cousins  in  the  flock — settling  on  the  lawn, 
speedily  clean  off  the  seeds  of  whatever  grasses  may 

157 


How   to    Attract   the    Birds 


have  got  ahead  of  the  mowing  machine.  Large 
companies  of  feeders  must  necessarily  be  rovers. 
.Now,  flocks  of  slate-colored  juncos  appear  among  the 
late  asters  and  goldenrod  by  the  waysides.  Hosts 
of  old  friends  come  back  to  us  every  day ;  some  new 
acquaintances  may  turn  up  at  any  hour. 

High  up  in  the  air,  sometimes  a  mile  or  more 
above  the  earth,  if  the  weather  be  clear,  travel  flocks 
of  migrants  where  they  can  obtain  a  bird's-eye  view 
of  the  country  to  be  traversed.  Geese  have  been 
detected  four  miles  high.  Rivers  running  like  silver 

threads  across  the 
map,  mountain 
ranges,  valleys,  and 
the  seacoast  line, 
must  be  far  more 
familiar  to  the  birds 
that  follow  them  sys- 
tematically than  to 
Macaulay's  school- 
boy. Only  large, 
strong,  or  coura- 
geous birds  dare 
travel  in  broad  day- 
light. A  mellow 
honk,  honk  from  the 
veteran  leader  of  a 
wedge-shaped  flock 
of  wild  geese  will 
be  answered  all 
along  the  ranks  by 

Young  Bluebird  resting  for  refreshments  after         i_  •        lyctv     followers 
wing  practice.   A  candidate  for  a  personally  - 

conducted  excursion  next  November  leSt       any      Straggler 

I58 


Why    Birds    Come    and    Go 

should  be  lost ;  for  sound  as  well  as  sight  aids  their 
flight.  The  twitterings  and  pipings  of  the  birds  that 
pass  in  the  night  float  earthward  to  our  listening 
ears  from  the  dark  vault  overhead,  where  they  move 
unseen  by  friend  or  foe. 

In  autumn,  great  numbers  of  migrants  dash  to 
their  death  against  the  lighthouses  along  our  coasts, 
partly  because  many  are  young,  inexperienced,  way- 
ward travelers ;  partly  because  fog  now  often  ob- 
scures their  course,  and  chiefly,  because  they  are 
irresistibly  attracted  toward  the  bright,  cheerful  bea- 
cons, much  as  moths  are  drawn  to  the  flame.  Young 
birds  have  learned  to  fly  swiftly  in  a  straight  line  be- 
fore they  can  steer  their  bodies  well.  Once  launched 
on  a  long  flight,  it  is  easier  to  keep  going  than  to  stop 
short.  Immature  cedar-waxwings,  for  example,  do 
not  lag  behind  their  swift  parents  when  they  fly  in  a 
straight  course  above  the  tree  -  tops ;  but  I  have 
picked  up  in  September  the  dead  bodies  of  more 
young  waxwings  than  I  care  to  recall,  simply  be- 
cause, in  flying  low  between  one  choke-cherry  tree 
on  the  lawn  and  another  on  the  road,  they  couldn't 
turn  out  suddenly  enough  to  escape  the  corner  of 
the  house  that  stood  in  a  direct  line  between  the 
trees,  and  so  they  broke  their  poor  little  necks  by 
dashing  at  top  speed  against  the  piazza  posts. 

HAVE    BIRDS    A    SIXTH    SENSE? 

Opposing  theories  to  account  for  the  migratory 
instinct  are  advanced  by  scientists.  By  some  it  is 
contended  that  peculiar  acuteness  of  the  five  senses, 
inherent  in  all  animals,  would  account  for  the  birds' 

159 


How   to   Attract   the    Birds 

faculty  of  finding  their  way  from  one  region  to  an- 
other, even  from  one  continent  to  another,  with  pre- 
cise regularity,  which  birds  alone  possess  in  the 
highest  degree.  Other  scientists  insist  that  orienta- 
tion, the  instinct  of  determining  direction  or  relative 
position  in  general,  brings  into  play  a  sixth  sense  not 
dependent  on  the  other  five.  Doubtless  the  descent 
and  withdrawal  of  the  ice  in  the  glacial  period  had 
much  to  do  with  the  origin  of  the  migratory  habit. 
Certain  it  is  that  only  a  bird  which  has  once  made  a 
journey  can  find  its  way  back  to  the  starting  point. 
Therefore,  every  young  traveler  must  be  "person- 
ally conducted"  by  a  veteran.  A  bird  will  always 
return,  if  possible,  to  the  region  of  its  birth.  It 
knows  no  other  course  to  follow  than  the  one  once 
taken.  A  wounded  young  bird  that  is  not  able  to 
leave  with  the  south-bound  flock  in  autumn  and 
recovers  strength  too  late  to  overtake  it,  must  remain 
perforce  at  the  north.  If  the  food  it  requires  fail, 
die  it  must,  for  by  no  possibility  could  it  find  its  way 
alone  to  a  land  of  plenty.  The  soaring  lark,  which 
"at  heaven's  gate  sings,"  has  been  imported  to  this 
country  from  Europe,  only  to  die,  in  most  cases, 
because,  at  the  approach  of  winter,  it  couldn't  mi- 
grate over  unknown  territory,  and  couldn't  find 
food  enough  in  our  snow-covered  northern  fields, 
where,  however,  it  was  perfectly  content  in  summer. 
In  all  probability  the  journeys  undertaken  by 
birds  at  first  were  short,  roving  excursions  from 
home ;  gradually  the  routes  traversed  were  length- 
ened of  necessity,  until,  in  generation  after  genera- 
tion, the  habit  of  traveling  became  hereditary;  the 
"homing  instinct"  led  little  by  little  to  fixed  migra- 

160 


Why    Birds    Come    and    Go 

tory  habits.     The  entire   subject   stirs  our  imagina 
tion  as  no  other  phase  of  bird   life   does;  for,  after 
all  has  been  said  about  migration  by  the   scientists, 
the  wonder  and  the  mystery  remain. 


A  clear  highway  for  the  migrants  between  fog  and  clouds 


161 


WHAT    BIRDS    DO    FOR    US 


CHAPTER    VIII 
WHAT   BIRDS    DO   FOR   US 

MAN'S  attitude  toward  nature  reveals  a  long 
step  in  his  evolution.  Shocked  now  and  again  into 
sudden  recognition  of  her  power  by  some  mighty, 
destructive  phenomenon — an  earthquake,  volcanic 
eruption,  cyclone  or  flood — undeveloped  man  of  all 
nations,  trembling  with  terror,  purchased  ease  of 
mind  only  by  offering  sacrificial  gifts  to  appease 
the  wrath  of  imaginary  gods,  and  then  straightway 
relapsed  into  indifference.  Her  gentle,  kindly 
ministrations  every  hour  of  his  life,  her  marvelous 
beauties,  impressed  him  not  at  all.  Whenever 
he  thought  of  nature  it  was  of  something  mystic, 
beyond  his  comprehension,  evil,  terrible. 

Even  the  matchless  art  of  the  Greeks  reveals 
no  appreciation  of  natural  beauty  beyond  the  glori- 
fied human  physique.  For  all  the  great  masters 
among  early  Christian  painters,  for  Raphael,  Michael 
Angelo,  Correggio,  the  lovely,  smiling  Italian  Eden 
lying  around  them  did  not  exist.  It  was  literally 
beneath  their  notice,  for  their  sight,  lifted  perpetu- 
ally heavenward  in  search  of  subjects,  could  include 
nothing  but  clouds  as  natural  settings  for  their 
Madonnas  and  cherubim.  Not  until  the  last  cen- 
tury did  artists  come  down  to  earth  and  discover 
the  landscape  for  the  people.  And  not  until  the  last 
generation  has  nature  study,  the  trained  observation 

165 


How   to    Attract   the    Birds 

and  love  of  nature,  the  most  spiritualizing  of  jll  his 
lessons,  formed  part  of  the  American  child's  edu- 
cation. 

One  of  our  greatest  religious  thinkers  has  recently 
set  himself  the  task  of  getting  acquainted  with  the 
trees,  birds  and  wild  flowers  around  his  summer 
home.  "When  I  was  a  boy,"  he  says,  half  apolo- 
getically, "we  never  noticed  these  things.  The 
good  people  fixed  their  thoughts  so  steadfastly  on 
the  next  world,  they  quite  overlooked  this.  We  left 
nature  unread  then,  thinking  that  everything  worth 
knowing  had  to  be  studied  out  of  lesson  books. 
And  the  idea  of  knowledge  that  obtained  in  a  New 
England  academy  was  almost  mediaeval.  It  bore 
almost  no  relation  to  the  people's  daily  lives.  Where 
nearly  the  entire  population  earned  a  living  from  the 
soil,  absolutely  nothing  was  done  toward  making  the 
people  understand  it  and  love  it.  Is  it  any  wonder 
that  farming  meant  failure  so  often  and  that  the 
ambitious  young  people  rushed  madly  toward  the 
cities?  We  are  only  just  learning  to  enjoy  nature, 
to  open  our  blind  eyes  and  see  the  world  around 
us,  to  stop  destroying  and  preserve  the  beneficent 
gifts  lavished  upon  us,  to  utilize  them  intelligently, 
which  is  to  agree  with  our  Creator  that  His  creation 
is  good." 

A   NEW   THING   UNDER   THE    SUN 

In  the  quite  sudden  popular  interest  in  nature 
recently  manifest,  birds  have  come  in  for,  perhaps, 
the  lion's  share  of  attention.  Unlike  most  move- 
ments, this  is  an  absolutely  new  one  in  the  history  of 

1 66 


"* 


What    Birds    Do    for    Us 

the  world,  not  a  revival.  One  might  have  thought 
that  so  intensely  practical  a  people  as  the  Americins 
would  have  taken  up  economic  ornithology  first  of 
all,  have  learned  with  scientific  certainty  which  birds 
are  too  destructive  for  survival  and  which  so  valua- 
ble that  every  measure  ought  to  be  taken  to  preserve 
and  increase  them.  In  reality  this  has  been  the  last 
aspect  of  the  subject  to  receive  attention.  First 
came  the  classifiers  —  Wilson,  Audubon,  Baird,  and 
Nuttall  —  the  pioneers  in  systematic  bird  study. 
Thoreau  was  as  a  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness. 
His  books  lay  in  piles  on  the  attic  floor,  unsold  many 
years  after  his  death.  It  remained  for  John  Bur- 
roughs to  awaken  the  popular  enthusiasm  for  out-of- 
door  life  generally  and  for  birds  particularly,  which 
is  one  of  the  signs  of  our  times. 

Among  the  first  acts  passed  in  the  Colonies  were 
bounty  laws,  not  only  offering  rewards  for  the  heads 
of  certain  birds  that  were  condemned  without  fair 
trial,  but  imposing  fixed  fines  upon  the  farmer  who 
did  not  kill  his  quota  each  year.  Of  course  every 
man  and  boy  carried  a  gun.  The  bounty  system  did 
much  to  foster  the  popular  notion  that  everything  in 
feathers  is  a  legitimate  target.  Thus  it  is  that 

"The  evil  that  birds  do  lives  after  them ; 
The  good  is  oft  interred  with  their  bones." 

For  two  centuries  and  a  half  this  systematic  de- 
struction of  birds,  which  blundered  ignorantly  along 
in  every  colony,  state  and  territory,  resulted  in  a  loss 
to  our  agriculture  whose  colossal  aggregate  would 
"stagger  humanity"  if,  indeed,  our  minds  could  grasp 
the  estimated  figures  in  dollars  and  cents.  Men  now 

169 


How   to    Attract    the    Birds 

living  among  us  were  absolutely  the  first  to  study  the 
food  of  any  one  species  of  bird  through  an  entire 
year  and  in  various  sections  of  the  country,  and  to 
pass  scientific  judgment  upon  it  only  after  laboratory 
tests  of  the  contents  of  its  stomach, —  that  final  court 
of  appeal.  Through  pressure  brought  to  bear  upon 
Congress  by  the  American  Ornithologists'  Union, 
the  Department  of  Agriculture  was  authorized  in 
1885  to  spend  a  ridiculously  small  sum  to  learn  the 
positive  economic  value  of  birds  to  us,  a  branch  of 
scientific  research  now  included  under  the  Division 
of  Biological  Survey.  Until  that  year  all  the  scien- 
tific work  that  was  done  in  this  line  could  have 
been  recorded  in  a  very  small  volume  indeed. 

A  GENERAL  WHITEWASHING 

As  might  have  been  expected,  when  the  white 
search-light  of  science  beats  upon  the  birds,  none, 
not  even  the -crow,  appears  as  black  as  he  has  been 
painted.  Only  a  few  culprits  among  the  hawks  and 
owls,  and  only  one  little  sinner  not  a  bird  of  prey, 
stand  convicted  and  condemned  to  die.  When  it 
came  to  a  verdict  on  the  English  sparrow,  after  the 
most  thorough  and  impartial  trial  any  bird  ever  re- 
ceived, every  thumb,  alas!  was  turned  down.  But 
having  proven  itself  fittest  to  survive  in  the  struggle 
for  existence  after  ages  of  competition  with  the  birds 
of  the  Old  World,  being  obedient  to  nature's  great 
law,  it  will  defy  man's  legislation  to  exterminate  it. 
Toilers  in  our  over -populated  cities,  children  of  the 
slums,  see  at  least  one  bird  that  is  not  afraid  to  live 
among  them  the  year  around. 

170 


A  much  maligned  ally  of  the  farmer  — the  Red-shouldered  Mavvk 


What    Birds    Do    for    Us 

One  of  the  first  good  effects  of  the  Government's 
scientific  investigation  of  birds,  and  the  consequent 
whitewashing  of  bird  characters  that  ensued,  was  the 
withdrawal  of  bounties  by  many  states.  Pennsylva- 
nia, for  instance,  woke  up  to  realize  that  her  noto- 
rious "scalp  act"  had  lost  her  farmers  many  millions 
of  dollars  through  the  ravages  of  field  mice,  because 
the  wholesale  slaughter  of  all  hawks  and  owls,  re- 
gardless of  their  food  and  habits,  had  been  systemati- 
cally encouraged.  A  little  knowledge  on  the  part  of 
legislators,  backed  by  an  immense  amount  of  popu- 
lar ignorance  and  prejudice  against  all  of  the  so- 
called  birds  of  prey,  proved  to  be  a  very  dangerous 
thing.  Even  better  than  the  withdrawal  of  bounties 
is  the  action  taken  by  many  states  to  protect  the 
birds.  Instead  of  laying  stress  upon  only  the  appar- 
ent evil  in  nature,  as  undeveloped  pagans  did,  we 
are  at  last  putting  the  emphasis  where  it  rightly  be- 
longs,— upon  the  good. 

THE    PARTITION   OF  APPETITES 

Whoever  takes  any  notice  of  the  birds  about  us 
cannot  fail  to  be  impressed  with  the  regulation  of 
that  department  of  nature's  housekeeping  entrusted 
to  them.  The  labor  is  so  adjusted  as  to  give  to  each 
class  of  birds  duties  as  distinct  as  a  cook's  from  a 
chambermaid's.  One  class  of  tireless  workers  is  bid- 
den to  sweep  the  air  and  keep  down  the  very  small 
gauzy -winged  pests  such  as  mosquitoes,  gnats,  and 
midges.  Swallows  dart  and  skim  above  shallow 
water,  fields,  and  marshes ;  purple  martins  circle 
about  our  gardens;  swifts  around  the  roofs  of  our 


How   to    Attract   the    Birds 

houses,  night-hawks  and  whippoorwills  through  the 
open  country,  all  plying  the  air  for  hours  at  a  time. 
Some,  which  fly  with  their  mouths  open,  need  not 
pause  a  moment  for  refreshments. 

On  distended  upper  branches,  preferably  dead 
ones,  on  fence  rails,  posts,  roofs,  gables  and  other 
points  of  vantage  where  no  foliage  can  impede  their 
aerial  sallies,  sit  kingbirds,  pewees,  phoebes,  and 
kindred  dusky,  inconspicuous  flycatchers,  ready  to 
launch  off  into  the  air  the  second  an  insect  heaves  in 
sight,  snap  it  up  with  the  click  of  a  satisfied  beak, 
then  return  to  their  favorite  look-out  and  patiently 
wait  for  another.  This  class  of  birds  keeps  down  the 
larger  flying  insects.  For  generations  the  kingbird 
has  been  condemned  as  a  destroyer  of  bees.  Rigid 
investigation  proves  that  he  eats  very  few  indeed,  and 
those  mostly  drones.  On  the  contrary,  he  destroys 
immense  numbers  of  robber-flies  or  bee-killers,  one 
of  the  worst  enemies  the  bee  farmer  has.  The  mere 
fact  that  the  kingbird  has  been  seen  so  commonly 
around  apiaries  was  counted  sufficient  circumstantial 
evidence  to  condemn  him  in  this  land  of  liberty. 
But  after  a  fair  trial  it  was  found  that  ninety  per 
cent  of  his  food  consists  of  insects  chiefly  injurious : 
robber-flies,  horse-flies,  rose  chafers,  clover  weevils, 
grasshoppers,  and  orchard  beetles  among  others. 

THE    CARE    OF   FOLIAGE 

To  such  birds  as  haunt  the  terminal  twigs  of  trees 
and  shrubbery — the  warbler  tribe  and  the  vireos, 
chiefly — was  assigned  the  duty  of  cleaning  the  foliage 
on  the  ends  of  the  branches,  where  many  kinds  of 


What    Birds    Do    for   Us" 

insects  deposit  their  eggs  that  their  young  may  have 
the  freshest,  tenderest  leaves  to  feed  upon.  Some 
few  warblers,  in  the  great  family,  confine  their  labors 
to  the  ground  and  undergrowth,  it  is  true,  and  a  few 
others  pick  their  living  out  of  the  trunks  of  trees, 
but  they  are  the  exceptions  which  prove  the  rule. 
Countless  millions  of  larvae,  plant  lice,  ants,  canker- 
worms,  leaf-hoppers,  flies,  and  the  smaller  cater- 


Parasites  on  Caterpillar  host.     What  the  Vireo  sees  under  a  leaf 

pillars  go  to  supply  the  tireless  energy  of  these 
charming  little  visitors  each  time  they  migrate 
through  our  neighborhood.  Generally  speaking, 
the  vireos,  or  greenlets,  are  less  nervous  and  more 
deliberate  and  thorough  in  their  search  than  the 
warblers.  Cocking  their  heads  to  one  side,  they 
scrutinize  the  under  half  of  the  leaves  where  insects 
have  sought  protection  from  just  such  sharp  eyes  as 
theirs,  as  well  from  rain  and  sun.  After  a  warbler 


How    to    Attract    the    Birds 


has  snatched  a  hasty  lunch  in  any  given  place,  the 
vireo  can  follow  him  and  find  a  square  meal  to  be 
enjoyed  at  leisure. 

But  vireos  and  warblers,  which  are  smaller  than 
sparrows,  however  efficient  as  destroyers  of  the  lesser 
insects,  would  be  powerless  to  grapple  with  the  lar- 
ger pests  found 
in  the  same 
places.  Accord- 
ingly, another 
gang  of  larger 
feathered  work- 
ers helps  take 
care  of  the  foli- 
age for  that 
most  thorough 
of  housekeepers, 
Dame  Nature. 
Hidden  among 
the  foliage  of 
trees  and  shub- 
b  e  r  y  ,  an  im- 
mense army  of 
feathered  work- 
ers—  many  of 
our  most  beauti- 
ful birds  and 
finest  songsters 
hire,  and  during 
longer  working  hours  than  any  trades  -  union 
would  allow.  Thrushes,  bluebirds,  robins,  mock- 
ingbirds, orioles,  catbirds,  thrashers,  wrens,  and 
tanagers  —  these  and  many  others  keep  up  a  lively 


A  feast  of  tent  caterpillars  for  the  cuckoo 

among  them  —  serve   her  without 


What    Birds    Do    for    Us 

insect  hunt  throughout  a  long  sojourn  among  usr 
coming  when  the  first  insects  emerge  in  the  spring 
and  not  wholly  giving  up  the  chase  until  the 
last  die  or  become  dormant  with  the  coming  of 
winter.  What  could  a  little  warbler  do  with  tent 
caterpillars,  for  example?  But  slim,  large  cuckoos 
glide  among  the  leafy  branches  and  count  them- 


"Most  birds  will  not  touch  the  hairy  kind" 
I77 


How   to   Attract    the    Birds 


selves  lucky  to   enter  a   neighborhood    infested    by 

them.    The  sudden  appearance  of  a  new  insect  pest 

often  attracts  large  numbers  of  birds  not  commonly 

.  seen     in     the 

neighborhood. 
If  dead  or  muti- 
lated larvae  of 
tent  caterpillars 
are'seen  near  the 
torn  tent  it  was 
probably  opened 
by  an  oriole,  for 
the  cuckoo  does 
his  work  more 
thoroughly,  leav- 
ing no  remains. 
The  black-billed 
cuckoo  has  been 
an  invaluable  ally 
of  the  farmers  in 
their  herculean 
task  of  destroy- 
ing the  gypsy 
moth,  an  alarm- 
ing pest  which, 
although  only 
jjj^  recently  intro- 

duced from  Eu- 
rope, has  already 
laid  waste  large  sections  of  New  England.  The 
stomach  of  a  single  yellow- billed  cuckoo  examined 
contained  two  hundred  and  seventeen  fall  web- 
worms  !  Hairs  have  been  considered  a  means  of 


An  important  item  on  the  Baltimore  Oriole's  bill 
of  fare  (smooth  Caterpillar) 


What    Birds    Do    for    Us 

protection  adopted  by  many  caterpillars.  Most  birds 
will  not  touch  the  hairy  kind.  But  cuckoos  are  not 
so  fastidious.  The  walls  of  their  stomachs  are  some- 
times as  closely  coated  with  hairs  as  a  gentleman's 
beaver  hat.  Caterpillars  are  also  the  most  important 
item  on  the  Baltimore  oriole's  bill  of  fare,  of  which 
eighty-three  per  cent  is  insect  food  gleaned  among 
the  foliage  of  trees.  Click  beetles,  which  infest 
every  "kind  of  cultivated  plant,  and  their  larvae, 
known  as  wire -worms,  destroy  millions  of  dollars' 
worth  of  farm  produce  every  year.  Now,  there  are 
over  five  hundred  species  of  them  in  North  America, 
and  the  oriole,  which  eats  them  as  a  staple  and 
demolishes  very  many  other  kinds  of  beetles,  wasps, 
bugs,  plant-lice,  craneflies,  grasshoppers,  locusts,  and 
spiders,  should  win  opinions  as  golden  as  his  feathers 
for  this  benefaction  alone.  It  has  been  said  that  were 
all  the  insects  to  perish,  all  the  flowers  would  perish 
too,  which  is  not  half  so  true  as  that  were  all  the 
birds  to  perish  men  would  speedily  follow  them. 
At  the  end  of  ten  years  the  insects,  unchecked, 
would  have  eaten  every  green  thing  off  the  earth  ! 

THE   BIRDS    THAT    HAVE   CHARGE    OF    THE    BARK 

For  obvious  reasons,  then,  many  crawling  insects 
hide  themselves  under  the  scaly  bark  of  trees  or  in 
holes  laboriously  tunneled  in  decaying  wood  ;  others 
deposit  their  eggs  in  such  secret  places.  When  they 
die  a  natural  death  at  the  close  of  summer  it  is  with 
the  happy  delusion  that  the  next  generation  of  their 
species,  sleeping  in  embryo,  is  perfectly  safe.  But 
see  how  long  it  takes  a  woodpecker  to  eat  a  hundred 

179 


How   to    Attract    the    Birds 

insect  eggs  and  empty  a  burrow  of  every  grub  in  it  ! 
Inspecting  each  crevice  where  moth  or  beetle  might 
lay  her  eggs,  he  works  his  way  around  a  tree  from 
bottom  to  top,  now  stopping  to  listen  for  the  stirring 
of  a  borer  under  the  smooth,  innocent- looking  bark, 
now  tapping  at  a  suspicious  point  and  quickly  drill- 
ing a  hole  where  there  is  a  prospect  of  heading  off 
his  victim.  Using  his  bill  as  a  chisel  and  mallet  and 
his  long  tongue  as  a  barbed  spear  to  draw  the  grub 
from  its  nethermost  hiding  place,  he  lets  nothing 
escape  him.  Boring  beetles,  tree  -  boring  caterpil- 
lars, timber  ants,  and  other  insects  which  are  inacces- 
sible to  other  birds,  must  yield  their  reluctant  bodies 
to  that  merciless  barbed  tongue.  Our  little  friend 
downy  and  the  hairy  woodpecker,  the  most  benefi- 
cial members  of  the  family,  the  flicker  that  descends 
to  the  ground  to  eat  ants,  the  red -headed  wood- 
pecker that  intersperses  his  diet  with  grasshoppers, 
even  the  much-maligned  sapsucker  that  pays  for  his 
intemperate  drinks  of  freshly  drawn  sap  by  eating 
ants,  grasshoppers,  flies,  wasps,  bugs,  and  beetles, — 
to  these  common  woodpeckers  and  to  their  less 
neighborly  kin,  more  than  to  any  other  agency,  we 
owe  the  preservation  of  our  timber  from  hordes  of 
destructive  insects. 

But  acknowledgment  of  this  deep  obligation 
must  not  cause  us  to  overlook  the  nuthatches,  brown 
creepers,  chickadees,  kinglets,  and  such  other  help- 
ers that  keep  up  quite  as  tireless  a  search  for  insects 
on  the  tree  trunks  and  larger  limbs  as  the  more 
perfectly  equipped  woodpeckers.  "In  a  single  day 
a  chickadee  will  sometimes  eat  more  than  four  hun- 
dred eggs  of  the  apple  plant-louse,"  says  Professor 

1 80 


Preservers  of  timber  :   Downy  Woodpeckers 


What    Birds    Do    for   Us 

Clarence  Moores  Weed,  "while  throughout  the 
winter  one  will  destroy  an  immense  number  of  the 
eggs  of  the  canker-worm." 

CARETAKERS   OF   THE   GROUND   FLOOR 

Hidden  in  the  grasses  at  the  foot  of  the  trees, 
among  the  undergrowth  of  woodland  borders,  under 
the  carpet  of  last  year's  leaves,  and  buried  in  the 
ground  itself,  are  insect  enemies  whose  name  is 
legion.  Among  the  worst  of  them  are  the  white 
grubs — the  larvae  of  May  beetles  or  June  bugs — and 
the  wireworms  which  attack  the  roots  of  grasses 
and  the  farmers'  grain;  the  maggots  of  crane-flies 
which  do  their  fatal  work  under  cover  of  darkness  in 
the  soil;  root-  and  crown-borers  which  destroy  an- 
nually fields  of  timothy,  clover,  and  herds-grass ; 
grasshoppers,  locusts,  chinch  bugs,  cutworms  and 
army  worms  that  have  ruined  crops  enough  to  pay 
the  national  debt  many  times  over. 

But  what  a  hungry  feathered  army  rushes  to 
their  attack !  And  how  much  larger  would  that 
army  have  been  if,  in  our  blind  stupidity  or  igno- 
rance, we  had  not  killed  off  billions  of  members  of  it ! 

Some  habitual  fruit-  or  seed-eating  birds  of  the 
trees  descend  to  the  ground  at  certain  seasons,  or 
when  an  insect  plague  appears,  changing  their  diet 
to  suit  nature's  special  need;  others  "lay  low"  the 
the  year  around,  waging  a  perpetual  insect  war. 
First  in  that  war  stands  the  meadow-lark.  It  is  esti- 
mated that  every  meadow-lark  is  worth  over  one 
dollar  a  year  to  the  farmers,  if  only  in  consideration  of 
the  grasshoppers  it  destroys ;  and  as  insects  constitute 

183 


How   to    Attract    the    Birds 

seventy-three  per  cent  of  its  diet,  the  remainder 
being  seeds  of  weeds  chiefly,  the  farmer  might  as 
well  draw  money  out  of  the  bank  and  throw  it  in 
the  sea  as  to  allow  the  meadow-lark  to  be  shot ;  yet  it 


An  appetizing  dinner 

has  long  been  classed  among  game  birds  —  a  target 
for  gunners. 

trThe  average  annual  loss  which  the  chinch  bug 
causes  to  the  United  States  cannot  be  less  than 
twenty  million  dollars,"  says  Dr.  L.  O.  Howard,  of 

184 


What   Birds    Do   for   Us 

the  Department  of  Agriculture.  "It  feeds  on  Indian 
corn  and  on  wheat  and  other  small  grains  and 
grasses,  puncturing  the  stalks  and  causing  them  to 
wilt."  Incalculable  numbers  of  this  pest  are  eaten 
every  season  by  Bob  Whites,  or  quail,  which,  it  will 
be  seen,  are  perhaps  as  valuable  to  the  American  peo- 
ple when  roaming  through  our  grain  fields  as  when 
served  on  toast  to  our  epicures.  Blackbirds,  crows, 
robins,  native  sparrows,  chewinks,  oven-birds,  brown 
thrashers,  ground  warblers,  woodcock,  grouse,  plov- 
ers, and  the  yellow-winged  woodpeckers  or  flickers, 
which  feed  on  ants  (whose  chief  offense  is  that  they 
protect  aphides  or  plant  lice  to  "milk"  them) — these, 
and  many  other  birds  contribute  to  our  national 
wealth  more  than  the  wisest  statistician  could  esti- 
mate. Many  old  farmers  will  wish  at  least  the  crow 
or  the  blackbird  removed  from  this  white  list,  but 
scientific  experts  have  proved  that  the  workman  is 
worthy  of  his  hire  —  that  the  birds  which  destroy 
enormous  numbers  of  white  grubs,  army  worms,  cut- 
worms and  grasshoppers  in  the  fields  are  as  much 
entitled  to  a  share  of  the  corn  as  the  horse  that  plows 
it  or  the  ox  that  treads  it  out.  The  evil  results  fol- 
lowing a  disturbance  of  nature's  nice  balances  rest 
on  no  scientific  theories  but  on  historic  facts.  Pro- 
tective bird  laws,  which  very  quickly  increase  the 
insect  police  force,  add  many  million  dollars  annually 
to  the  permanent  wealth  not  only  of  such  enlight- 
ened states  as  have  adopted  them,  but  to  the  country 
at  large,  for  birds,  like  the  rain,  minister  to  the 
just  and  the  unjust.  And  the  rising  generation 
of  farmers  is  the  first  to  be  taught  this  simple 
economic  fact ! 

185 


How   to    Attract    the    Birds 


WEED    DESTROYERS 

Weeds  have  been  defined  as  plants  out  of  place, 
and  agriculture  as  an  everlasting  war  against  them. 
What  natural  allies  has  the  pestered  farmer? 

Happily,  the  sparrows  and  finches,  among  the 
most  widely  distributed,  prolific  and  hardy  of  birds, 
are  his  constant  co-workers,  some  members  of  their 
large  clan  being  with  him  wherever  he  may  live 
every  day  in  the  year.  Nearly  all,  it  is  true,  vary 

their  diet  with  in- 
sects, but  surely 
they  are  no  less 
welcome  on  that 
account ! 

"Certain  gar- 
den weeds  pro- 
duce an  incredi- 
ble number  of 
seeds,"  says  Dr. 
Sylvester  Judd, 
of  the  Biologi- 
cal Survey.  "A 
single  plant  of 
one  of  these  spe- 
cies may  mature 
as  many  as  a 
hundred  thou- 
sand seeds  in  a 
season,  and  if  un- 
checked would 
produce  in  the 
spring  of  the 


A  tempting  lunch.  —  Milk-weed  seeds  for 
the  finches 


186 


What    Birds    Do    for   Us 

third  year  ten  billion  plants."  With  these  figures 
in  mind,  it  is  easy  to  account  for  the  exceedingly 
rapid  spread  of  certain  weeds  from  the  Old  World 
— daisies  and  wild  carrot,  for  example  —  of  com- 
paratively recent  introduction  here.  The  great  ma- 
jority of  weeds  being  annuals,  the  parent  plant 
dying  after  frost  or  one  season's  growth  and  the 
species  living  only  in  embryo  during  the,  remain- 
der of  the  year,  it  follows  that  seed-eating  birds  are 
of  enormous  practical  value.  Even  the  despised- 
English  sparrows  do  great  good  as  weed  destroyers 
— almost  enough  to  tip  the  scales  of  justice  in  their 
favor.  In  autumn,  what  noisy  flocks  of  the  little 
gamins  settle  on  our  lawns  and  clean  off  seeds  of 
crab-grass,  dandelion,  plantain,  and  other  upstarts 
in  the  turf !  The  song  sparrow,  the  chipping  spar- 
row, the  white-throated  sparrow,  and  the  goldfinch 
are  glad  enough  to  follow  after  their  English  cousin 
and  get  out  the  dandelion  seeds  exposed  after  he 
cuts  off  several  long,  protecting  scales  of  the  invo- 
lucre. Because  of  his  special  preference,  however, 
the  little  black  and  yellow  goldfinch,  an  unequaled 
destroyer  of  the  composite  weeds,  is  often  called 
the  thistle-bird.  The  few  tender  sparrows  which 
must  winter  in  the  south  are  replaced  in  autumn  by 
hardier  relatives,  whose  feeding  grounds  at  the  far 
north  are  buried  under  snow;  by  juncos,  snowflakes, 
longspurs,  redpolls,  grosbeaks,  and  siskins,  all  of 
which  are  busy  gleaners  among  the  plow  furrows  in 
fallow  land,  and  the  brown  weed-stalks  that  flank 
the  roadsides  or  rear  themselves  above  the  snowy 
fields.  In  enumerating  the  little  weeders  that  serve 
us  without  so  much  as  a  "thank  you" — and  fifty  dif- 


How   to    Attract    the    Birds 

ferent  birds  are  on  this  list — we  must  not  forget  the 
horned  lark,  chewink,  blackbirds,  cowbird,  grackles, 
meadow-lark,  bobolink,  ruffed  grouse,  Bob  White, 
and  the  mourning  dove. 

Even  the  most  sluggish  birds — and  some  of  the 
finch  tribe  have  a  reputation  for  being  that — are  fast 
livers  compared  with  men.  Their  hearts  beat  twice 
as  fast  as  ours ;  we  should  be  feverish  were  our  blood 
less  hot;  therefore,  the  quantity  of  food  required  to 
sustain  such  high  vitality,  especially  in  winter,  is 
relatively  enormous.  A  tree  sparrow  will  eat  one 
hundred  seeds  of  pigeon-grass  at  a  single  meal,  and 
a  snowflake,  observed  in  a  Massachusetts  garden  one 
February  morning,  picked  up  over  a  thousand  seeds 
of  pigweed  for  breakfast. 

BUSINESS    CO-PARTNERSHIPS 

In  view  of  the  enormous  amount  of  work  certain 
birds  are  capable  of  doing  for  the  farmers,  how  many 
take  any  pains  to  secure  their  free  services  continu- 
ously ;  to  get  help  from  them  as  well  as  from  the 
spraying  machine  and  insect  powder  on  which  so 
much  time  and  money  are  spent  annually?  The 
truth  is  that  very  few  farmers  indeed  realize  the  true 
situation  ;  therefore  the  intelligent,  the  obvious  thing 
to  be  done  is  generally  neglected. 

One  of  the  most  successful  fruit-growers  in  Geor- 
gia, whose  luxuriant  orchard  and  luscious  peaches  are 
famous  throughout  the  market,  entered  some  time 
ago  into  a  systematic,  business-like  understanding 
with  a  number  of  birds  whose  special  appetites  for 
special  insect  pests  make  them  invaluable  partners. 

1 88 


What   Birds    Do    for    Us 

Up  and  down  through  the  long  avenues  of  trees  he 
erected  poles  from  twenty  to  thirty  feet  high,  and 
from  them  swung  gourds  for  the  purple  martins  to 
nest  in,  because  he  has  found  this  bird  his  chief  ally 
in  keeping  down  the  cuculio  beetle,  the  most  de- 
structive foe,  perhaps,  the  fruit-grower  has  to  fight. 
Through  its  attack  alone  the  value  of  a  single  peach 


How  a  successful  peach  grower  in  Georgia  makes  the  purple 
martins  work  for  him 

orchard  has  been  reduced  from  ten  thousand  dollars 
to  nothing  in  three  weeks!  The  damage  this  little  bee- 
tle does  to  American  fruit-growers  annually  amounts 
to  many  millions  of  dollars.  Just  when  the  martins 
return  from  the  tropics,  it  is  emerging  from  its  winter 
hibernation.  And  when  the  nuptial  flight  of  the  cur- 
culio  and  the  shot -hole  borer  and  of  the  root -borer 
moth  occurs,  it  ought  to  be  obvious  to  every  fruit- 
grower that  he  cannot  have  too  many  insectivorous 

189 


How   to   Attract   the    Birds 

birds  about.  Bluebirds,  which  readily  accept  invita- 
tions to  nest  in  boxes  placed  on  poles  and  trees,  de- 
stroy immense  numbers  of  insects  taken  from  the 
trees,  ground,  and  air.  In  the  Georgia  orchard  re- 
ferred to,  titmice,  chickadees,  and  nuthatches  are  at- 
tracted by  raw  peanuts  placed  in  the  trees  and  scat- 


junior  partners  :    young  house-wrens  almost  ready  to  earn  their  own  living 

tered  over  the  ground.  Once  these  favorite  nuts 
were  discovered,  this  family  of  birds  likewise  joined 
the  firm  which,  with  the  addition  of  the  owner  of  the 
estate,  now  consists  of  purple  martins,  barn  swallows, 
chimney-swifts,  bluebirds  and  wrens.  Of  course  they 
have  numerous  assistants  that  come  and  go,  but  these 
are  the  recognized  partners,  both  full-fledged  and 
juniors,  with  homes  on  the  place.  And  all  draw 

190 


What    Birds    Do    for    Us 

enormous  dividends  from  it  in  that  unique  and 
happy  manner  which  greatly  increases  the  cash  rev- 
enues of  the  business.  Perhaps  the  junior  partners, 
the  fledglings,  with  appetites  bigger  than  their 
bodies  (for  many  eat  more  than  their  weight  of  food 


"An  Indigo  Bunting  mother  does  not  hesitate  to  ram  a 
large  grasshopper  down  her  small  baby's  throat  after 
she  has  nipped  off  the  wings" 

every  twenty-four  hours) ,  are  of  greater  value  than 
the  seniors.  Even  seed -eating  birds,  as  we  have 
seen  in  a  previous  chapter,  feed  insects  to  their  nest- 
lings :  an  indigo  bunting  mother  does  not  hesitate  to 
ram  a  very  large  grasshopper  down  her  very  small 
baby's  throat  after  she  has  nipped  off  the  wings. 

PARTNERSHIPS   IN    NATURE 

Just  as  many  insects  have  resorted  to  curious  and 
ingenious  devices  to  avoid  the   birds'  attention,  so 

191 


How   to    Attract   the    Birds 


many  trees,  shrubs,  and  plants,  with  ends  of  their 
own  to  be  gained,  take  great  pains  to  attract  it. 
Some  insects  mimic  with  their  coloring  that  of 

their     surround- 


n£s  :   one  must 

look  sharp  be- 
fore discovering 
the  glaucous 
green  worm  on 
the  glaucous 
green  nastur- 
tium leaf.  Some, 
like,  the  milk- 
weed butterfly, 
secrete  disagree- 
able juices  to  re- 
pel the  birds, 
and  other  but- 
terflies, which 
secrete  none, 
fool  their  foes  by 
bearing  a  super- 
ficial resem- 
blance to  it. 
Others,  like  the 
walking  -  stick,  assume  a  form  that  can  scarcely 
be  distinguished  from  the  objects  it  frequents. 
With  what  pains  does  the  caterpillar  draw  together 
the  edges  of  a  leaf  and  hide  within  it,  sleeping  until 
ready  to  emerge  into  its  winged  stage,  if  by  chance 
a  pair  of  sharp  eyes  does  not  discover  it  at  the 
beginning  of  its  nap,  and  a  sharper  beak  tear 
it  ruthlessly  from  the  snug  cradle  !  Children  who 

192 


A  slim  enough  dinner  for  any  bird  that 
discovers  it. — The  walking  stick 


"For  how  much  of  earth's  beauty  are  not  birds,  the  seed  carriers,  responsible  !" 
Cedar  bird  in  wild-grape  vine 


What    Birds    Do    for    Us 


gather  cocoons  in  the  autumn  are  often  disappointed 
to  find  so  many  already  empty.  They  forget  that 
thousands  of  hungry  migrants  have  been  out  hunt- 
ing every  morning  before  they  left  their  beds.  No 
cradle  yet  woven  is  too  tough  for  some  bird  to  tear 
open  for  the  luscious,  fat  morsel  within.  To  the 
Baltimore  oriole  looking  for  a  dinner,  the  strong 
cocoon  of  the  great  cecropia  moth 
yields  one  as  readily  as  another  ; 
and  I  have  watched  an  orchard 
oriole  that  brought  her 
young  family  to  feast  in 


The  cecropia  moth's  large, 
strong  cocoon  must  like- 
wise yield  its  contents  to 
the  oriole 

a  tamarix  bush  in  the  garden,  pick  forty-seven 
basket-worms  from  their  cleverly  concealed  baskets 
in  fifteen  minutes. 

But  how  the  bright  berries,  hanging  on  the  dog- 
wood, mountain  ash,  pokeweed,  choke -cherry, 
shadbush,  partridge  vine,  wintergreen,  bittersweet, 
juniper,  Virginia  creeper,  and  black  alder,  cry  aloud 
to  every  passing  bird,  "EAT  ME,"  like  Alice's  mar- 
malade in  Wonderland !  Many  plants  depend  as 
certainly  on  the  birds  to  distribute  their  seeds  as  on 

195 


How   to    Attract    the    Birds 

bees  and  other  insects  to  transfer  the  pollen  of  their 
flowers.  It  is  said  that  the  cuckoo-pint  or  spotted 
arum  of  Europe,  a  relative  of  our  jack-in-the-pulpit, 
actually  poisons  her  messengers  carrying  seed,  be- 
cause the  decaying  flesh  of  the  dead  birds  affords 
the  most  nourishing  food  for  her  seed  to  germinate 
in.  Happily  we  have  no  such  cannibalistic  pest 
here.  Our  wild  trees,  shrubbery,  plants,  and  vines 
are  honorable  partners  of  the  birds.  They  feed 
them  royally,  asking  in  return  only  that  the  undiges- 
ted seeds  or  kernels  which  pass  through  the  alimen- 
tary canal  uninjured  may  be  dropped  far  away  from 
the  parent  plant,  to  found  new  colonies.  For  how 
much  of  the  earth's  beauty  are  not  birds,  the  seed- 
carriers,  responsible  ! 

Up-to-date -farmers  who  wish  to  protect  their 
cultivated  fruits  have  learned  that  birds  actually  have 
the  poor  taste  to  prefer  wild  ones,  and  so  they  plant 
them  on  the  outskirts  of  the  farm,  along  walls  and 
fences.  They  have  also  learned  that  many  birds 
puncture  grapes  and  drink  fruit  juice  simply  because 
they  are  thirsty.  Pans  kept  filled  with  fresh  water 
compete  successfully  with  the  grape  arbor. 

SAINTS   AND    SINNERS 

Hawks  and  owls  may  be  so  labeled,  yet  it  would 
be  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  convince  some  peo- 
ple that  there  is  a  saint  in  the  group.  There  is  an 
instinctive  popular  hatred  of  every  bird  of  prey, — a 
hatred  so  unreasoning  and  unrelenting  that  it  is  well- 
nigh  impossible  to  secure  legislation  to  protect  some 
of  the  farmers'  most  beneficial  friends.  After  con- 

196 


UNIV'-R^ 
or 


What    Birds    Do    for    Us 


demning  the  duck  hawk  for  its  villainies  upon  our 
wild  water -fowl,  and  that  powerful  brigand,  the 
goshawk,  for  audaciously  carrying  off  full-grown 
poultry,  ruffed  grouse  and  rabbits,  and  Cooper's 
hawk,  a  deep-dyed  chicken  stealer,  whose  aggregate 
misdeeds  are  greater 
than  any  others  (simply 
because  his  species  is 
the  most  numerous) , 
and  his  smaller  proto- 
type, the  sharp-shinned 
hawk  for  destroying 
little  chickens  and 
song-birds,  Dr.  Fisher, 
who  made  an  exhaus- 
tive study  of  hawks  and 
owls  for  the  Govern- 
ment, recommends 
clemency  toward  all 
the  others.  He  investi- 
gated forty  birds  of 
prey  found  within  our 
borders. 

"It  would  be  just 
as  rational  to  take  the 
standard  for  the  human 
race  from  highwaymen 
and  pirates  as  to  judge 
all  hawks  by  the  deeds 
of  a  few,"  he  says. 
"Even  when  the  industrious  hawks  are  observed 
beating  tirelessly  back  and  forth  over  the  harvest 
fields  and  meadows,  6r  the  owls  are  seen  at  dark 

199 


A  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde:  the 
horned  owl 


How   to    Attract   the    Birds 

flying  silently  about  the  nurseries  and  orchards,  bus- 
ily engaged  in  hunting  the  voracious  rodents  which 
destroy  alike  the  grain,  produce,  young  trees,  and 
eggs  of  birds,  the  curses  of  the  majority  of  farmers 
and  sportsmen  go  with  them,  and  their  total  extinc- 
tion would  be  welcomed.  How  often  are  the  ser- 
vices to  man  misunderstood  through  ignorance ! 
The  birds  of  prey,  the  majority  of  which  labor  day 
and  night  to  destroy  the  enemies  of  the  husbandman, 
are  persecuted  unceasingly,  while  that  gigantic  fraud 
—  the  house  cat — is  petted  and  fed  and  given  a 
secure  shelter  from  which  it  may  emerge  to  spread 
destruction  among  the  feathered  tribe.  The  differ- 
ence between  the  two  can  be  summed  up  in  a  few 
words  :  Only  three  or  four  birds  of  prey  hunt  birds 
when  they  can  procure  rodents  for  food,  while  a  cat 
seldom  touches  mice  if  she  can  procure  birds  or 
young  poultry.  A  cat  has  been  known  to  kill 
twenty  young  chickens  in  a  day,  which  is  more  than 
most  raptorial  birds  destroy  in  a  lifetime." 

Hawks  and  owls  admirably  supplement  each 
other's  work.  One  group  hunts  while  the  other 
sleeps.  The  owls  usually  remain  in  a  chosen  neigh- 
borhood through  the  winter,  while  the  hawks  go 
south.  We  are  never  left  unprotected.  In  con- 
sideration of  the  overwhelming  amount  of  good 
these  unthanked  friends  do  us,  can  we  not  afford  to 
be  to  their  faults  a  little  blind? 

A   VOLUNTEER    HEALTH    DEPARTMENT 

In  the  southern  states,  Cuba,  and  the  adjacent 
islands,  the  great  dark  vultures  that  go  sailing  high 

200 


What    Birds    Do    for    Us 

in  air  express  the  very  poetry  of  motion ;  but  surely 
their  terrestrial  habits  have  to  do  with  the  very  prose 
of  existence,  for  self-constituted  health  officers  are 
they,  scavengers  of  the  fields,  that  rid  them  of  pu- 
trefying animal  matter.  Instead  of  burying  a  dead 
chicken,  dog,  cat,  or  even  a  large  domestic  animal, 
the  easy-going  Negro  lets  it  lie  where  it  dropped, 
knowing  full  well  that  before  it  becomes  offensive 
the  vultures  will  have  begun  to  feed  upon  it.  In 
some  of  the  smaller  cities  the  vultures  mingle  freely 
with  the  loungers  about  the  market-place,  gorging 
upon  the  refuse  thrown  about  for  the  only  street 
cleaners  in  sight.  Where  robins,  woodpeckers,  and 
many  species  of  small  song-birds  are  so  lightly  re- 
garded as  to  be  killed  in  shocking  quantities  and 
not  always  for  food,  the  vultures  are  carefully  pro- 
tected by  the  Southern  people,  who,  not  yet  realiz- 
ing the  greater  value  of  insectivorous  birds  to  the 
farmer,  do  nevertheless  know  enough  to  throw  the 
arm  of  the  law  around  their  feathered  scavengers. 
As  if  enough  services  that  birds  render  us  had 
not  already  been  enumerated  in  this  list, — which  is 
merely  suggestive  and  very  far  indeed  from  being 
complete, — the  birds  that  rid  our  beaches  of  putre- 
fying rubbish  must  not  be  forgotten.  While  several 
sea  and  beach  birds  share  this  task,  it  is  to  the  gulls 
that  we  are  chiefly  indebted.  In  the  wake  of  gar- 
bage scows  that  put  out  to  deep  water  from  the  har- 
bors of  the  seacoast  and  Great  Lakes  where  our 
large  cities  are  situated,  and  following  the  ocean 
liners  for  the  food  thrown  overboard  from  the  ship's 
galleys ;  or  resting  in  the  estuaries  of  the  larger 
rivers  where  the  refuse  floats  down  toward  the  tide, 

203 


How   to    Attract   the    Birds 

flocks  of  strong- winged  gulls  may  be  seen  hovering 
about  with  an  eye  intently  fastened  on  every  floating 
speck.  Enormous  feeders,  gulls  and  terns  cleanse 
the  waters  as  vultures  do  the  land.  Millions  of  these 
graceful  birds  that  enliven  the  dullest  marine  picture 
have  been  sacrificed  for  no  more  worthy  end  than  to 
rest  entire  or  in  mutilated  sections  on  women's  hats ! 
But  now  that  the  people  begin  to  understand  what 
birds  do  for  us,  a  happier  day  is  dawning  for  them  all. 


204 


SOME    NATURALIZED    FOREIGNERS 


CHAPTER   IX 
SOME   NATURALIZED   FOREIGNERS 

FROM  time  to  time  American  travelers,  wishing 
to  add  some  bird  from  the  Old  World  to  the  steadily 
decreased  ranks  of  our  native  species,  have  brought 
home  with  them  game  birds,  songsters  and  birds 
presumably  useful  to  the  agriculturist,  to  be  re- 
leased in  various  parts  of  the  United  States.  Which 
are  these  immigrants  living  in  our  midst?  How 
have  they  fared  ?  Have  all  proved  themselves  worthy 
of  naturalization  among  our  feathered  citizens? 

THE   ENGLISH    SPARROW 

This  was  among  the  first  aliens  introduced,  and 
1850  is  the  earliest  known  date  of  his  arrival.  Then 
eight  pairs  were  imported  by  the  directors  of  Brook- 
lyn Institute  into  their  city;  and,  notwithstanding 
the  fact  that  the  sparrows'  first  impressions  of 
America  were  formed  in  Greenwood  Cemetery, 
where  they  were  set  at  liberty,  they  went  to  house- 
keeping with  great  cheerfulness  and  that  marvelous 
adaptability  to  new  conditions  which  has  made  them 
the  most  successful  colonists  among  the  feathered 
tribes.  It  certainly  is  not  because  they  are  meek 
that  they  are  inheriting  the  earth. 

Not  only  did  individuals  continue  to  import  spar- 
rows for  the  next  twenty  years,  and  set  them  free  at 

207 


How   to    Attract    the    Birds 

various  places  from  Sandy  Hook  to  Iowa  —  the  San 
Francisco  and  other  western  colonies  were  not 
started  until  1875  —  but  corporations  took  up  the 
task  of  introducing  them  into  cities  where  the 
measuring  worms  hung  from  every  tree  and  dropped 
on  every  passer-by,  only  to  be  crushed  under  foot 
until  the  sidewalks  were  disgusting.  Philadelphia 
alone  imported  a  thousand  sparrows.  People  benev- 
olently disposed  sent  them  to  friends  in  distant 
states;  they  protected,  fed,  housed  and  coddled 
them.  Meanwhile  the  birds,  which  needed  nobody's 
care,  being  fit  to  survive  if  ever  creature  was,  multi- 
plied enormously,  and  soon  escaped  from  the  cities 
to  towns,  and  from  towns  to  villages,  but  always 
keeping  near  man,  for  a  parasitical  existence  ever 
suits  them  best.  The  hardships  and  dangers  of  the 
wild,  independent  state  are  carefully  avoided  by  these 
little  tramps.  By  1870  they  had  gained  a  foothold  in 
twenty  states,  the  District  of  Columbia,  and  two 
Canadian  provinces.  Now  only  Alaska,  Arizona, 
Montana,  Nevada  and  New  Mexico  remain  to  be  in- 
vaded. >In  an  old  number  of  the  "Transactions  of 
the  New  York  Academy  of  Sciences"  there  is  an  ac- 
count by  a  local  ornithologist  of  his  visit  to  Madison 
Square  to  see  if  he  could  find  some  English  Spar- 
rows which,  he  had  heard,  might  be  seen  there. 
Though  written  less  than  forty  years  ago,  it  reads 
like  a  page  of  ancient  history. 

As  the  "yellow  peril"  is  to  human  immigration, 
so  is  this  sparrow  to  other  birds.  It  is  true  he  ban- 
ished the  measuring  caterpillar  from  our  cities  and 
helps  destroy  the  seeds  of  crab-grass,  dandelions,  and 
other  noxious  weeds  on  our  lawns;  but  so  numerous 

208 


Some    Naturalized    Foreigners 

are  the  charges  brought  against  him  in  the  Govern- 
ment's exhaustive  report  —  charges  that  the  bird 
lover  fain  would  pardon,  if  in  justice  he  might — that 
one  by  one  his  staunchest  old  friends  are  deserting 
him.  In  several  wheat-growing  states  where  his 
depredations  on  the  ripened  grain  cost  the  farmers 
many  thousands  of  dollars  a  year,  a  price  is  put  upon 
his  head.  Reversing  the  order  of  Pope's  epigram 
on  vice,  we  first  embraced,  then  pitied  and  now  must 
endure  the  English  sparrow.  Yet  had  a  sparrow  ex- 
clusion act  been  suggested  when  the  sparrow  craze 
was  at  its  height,  it  is  doubtful  if  a  single  senator 
who  lent  his  voice  to  secure  the  Chinese  exclusion 
act  would  have  given  it  his  support.  But  our 
legislators  have  learned  a  lesson:  the  Lacey  Act 
permits  no  one  to  bring  a  foreign  bird  into  this 
country  without  permission  from  the  Department  of 
Agriculture. 

Not  to  be  confounded  with  the  English  house- 
sparrow  is  the  useful  and  tuneful  European  tree- 
sparrow,  which  has  been  successfully  acclimated 
after  repeated  failures,  around  St.  Louis,  Missouri. 

AN    INFLUX   OF    SONGSTERS 

A  few  years  before  the  first  English  sparrow 
came  across  the  ocean,  Thomas  Woodcock,  presi- 
dent of  the  Natural  History  Society  of  Brooklyn,  im- 
ported, for  their  charm's  sake,  European  goldfinches, 
linnets,  bullfinches,  and  the  skylarks,  whose  mottled 
brown  coloring  suggests  more  of  earth  than  of 
heaven.  It  is  known  that  the  last-named  species,  at 
least,  survived  two  winters,  albeit  that  over-populated 

209 


How   to    Attract    the    Birds 

city  of  the  dead,  Greenwood  Cemetery,  seemed  to 
be  the  most  satisfactory  asylum  they  could  find.  Pos- 
sibly the  little  strangers  wished  to  be  personally  con- 
ducted daily  by  American  angels  to  sing  "at  heaven's 
gate"  when  "Phoebus  'gins  arise."  In  1853  more 
skylarks  were  liberated  in  Greenwood,  also  wood- 
larks,  English  blackbirds,  and  brown  thrushes,  the 


One  of  the  first  and  most  delightful  European  immigrants  to  arrive  — 
the  skylark.     (From  a  mounted  specimen) 

little  robin  red-breast — a  diminutive  edition  of  our 
robin  —  and  another  lot  of  goldfinches.  Skylarks 
imported  by  other  enthusiastic  lovers  of  this  heav- 
enly minstrel  were  then  soaring  and  singing  above 
the  fields  around  Wilmington,  Delaware,  and  Wash- 
ington, D.  C.,  but  none  survived.  So  far  as  is 
known,  the  bird  has  become  naturalized  only  in 
certain  Long  Island  meadows,  not  many  miles 

210 


Some    Naturalized    Foreigners 

from    Brooklyn,    and    in    the    vicinity   of    Portland, 
Oregon. 

In  the  early  seventies  the  Acclimatization  Society 
of  Cincinnati  imported  about  twenty  species  of 
European  birds,  spending  nearly  nine  thousand  dol- 
lars on  the  four  thousand  individuals  that  were  set  at 
liberty.  Unhappily  that  laudable  experiment  proved 
a  failure.  A  similar  society  at  Cambridge,  Massa- 


The  European  goldfinch  now  naturalized  in  Massachusetts  and  New   iuiK 
(Mounted  specimen) 

chusetts,  had  better  success,  at  least  with  its  gold- 
finches, whose  descendants  are  now  found  in  several 
places  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  state.  Goldfinches 
released  in  Hoboken,  New  Jersey,  in  1878,  soon 
found  their  way  across  the  Hudson  river  to  Central 
Park,  New  York  city,  where  their  descendants  still 
flourish.  Apparently  the  charming  little  black  and 
yellow  American  goldfinches  gave  their  less  amiable 

211 


How   to   Attract   the    Birds 

European  relatives  a  cordial  welcome,  for  flocks 
seen  in  Bronx  Park  and  at  other  points  around  the 
upper  end  of  Manhattan  Island  frequently  contain 
both  species.  The  immigrant  is  a  trifle  larger  than 
the  native,  although  both  are  smaller  than  the  spar- 
row; he  has  a  bright  red  region  around  the  base  of 
his  strong,  sharp  bill;  the  top  of  his  head  and  the 
sides  of  his  neck  are  black,  as  are  also  his  wings  and 
tail;  the  former  is  crossed  by  a  yellow  band,  the  lat- 
ter marked  with  touches  of  white;  his  back  is  cinna- 
mon brown  and  the  under  parts  are  white,  lightly 
washed  with  the  same  shade  across  the  breast.  May 
his  tribe  increase ! 

Neither  expense  nor  failure  seems  to  prevent 
enthusiastic  bird  lovers  from  continuing  these  colo- 
nization schemes,  at  which  nature  cruelly  laughs  so 
often.  Three  attempts  to  introduce  the  starling 
were  made  in  New  York  before  1890,  when  at  length 
success  crowned  the  efforts  of  Mr.  Eugene  Schief- 
felin,  who  has  probably  paid  the  passage  of  more 
feathered  immigrants  to  this  country  than  any  other 
American.  Like  the  sparrow,  the  starling  is  not 
afraid  to  live  in  cities.  It  nests  on  the  Strand,  Lon- 
don, and  early  in  the  spring  of  1902  three  pairs  made 
their  home  in  the  cornice  of  the  building  on  Union 
Square,  New  York,  where  the  publishers  of  this 
book  have  their  offices.  The  clanging  of  cable-cars 
in  the  busy  thoroughfare  below,  the  rattle  of  wagons, 
street  vendors'  cries,  even  the  steam  drill  and  the 
blasting  of  rocks  in  the  subway,  which  shook  the 
building  to  its  foundations,  did  not  disturb  their 
domestic  peace.  Cracked  corn,  crushed  hemp  seed, 
and  mockingbird  food,  which  were  kept  on  the  fire 

212 


Some    Naturalized    Foreigners 

escape  outside  the  publisher's  windows,  may  have 
had  something  to  do  with  their  perfect  content. 
Passers-by  would  look  up  at  the  sound  of  their  un- 
familiar musical  whistle  —  two  long-drawn,  high, 
clear  notes,  the  last  a  trifle  higher  than  the  first 
-and  see  an  unfamiliar  black  bird,  suggesting  a 
grackle,  but  with  a  short,  square  tail,  which  empha- 
sized the  length  and  point  of  the  wings.  Seen  at 
close  range  at  the  nesting  season,  the  plumage  is 
glossy  black  brightly  shot  with  purple,  green,  and 
steel-blue  iridescence.  After  the  annual  molt  new 
feathers  come  in  tipped  with  buff,  which  makes  the 
plumage  look  heavily  speckled  at  first.  Gradually 
it  is  more  lightly  sprinkled  with  dots,  as  the  mark- 
ings wear  off,  until  the  bird  is  wholly  black  in  time 
to  go  a -wooing.  Then  his  bill  becomes  bright 
yellow. 

With  us  the  starling  is  a  permanent  resident. 
From  Staten  Island  and  the  opposite  New  Jersey 
and  Long  Island  shores  up  the  Hudson  thirty  miles 
or  more,  and  along  the  Sound  as  far  as  New  Haven, 
Connecticut,  it  is  slowly  extending  its  range.  Noisy 
broods  are  reared  in  tree  hollows  preferably.  Seen 
in  flight,  the  bird  appears  triangular,  owing  to  the 
wide  stretch  of  its  long  wings  and  its  short  tail, 
whereas  the  grackle's  long  steering  gear  is  its  most 
characteristic  feature.  Sailing  for  some  little  dis- 
tance before  alighting,  the  starling  finally  settles  in 
large,  open  spaces  and  walks  over  the  ground - 
crow  fashion.  On  the  South  Downs  of  England 
I  have  watched  it  familiarly  riding  on  the  sheeps' 
backs,  looking  for  pests  imbedded  in  the  fleece,  or 
walking  through  the  fields  after  the  plow,  devouring 

213 


How   to    Attract    the    Birds 

wholesale  quantities  of  grubs  and  crawling  insects. 
Both  agriculturists  and  graziers  count  it  their  very 
useful  ally,  and  it  is  so  considered  throughout 
Europe.  The  worst  that  can  be  said  of  it  is  that 


Starling  before  his  speckles  have  worn  off.      (Mounted  specimen) 


it  occasionally  pilfers  small  fruits,  but  never  so  much 
as  the  robin. 

With  extraordinary  precision,  great  flocks  of 
starlings,  numbering  sometimes  hundreds  of  birds, 
wheel  around  through  the  air,  close  ranks,  spread 
out  again,  rise  and  descend,  as  if  the  regiment  were 
a  single  living  thing.  This  is  their  usual  evening 
performance  before  settling  to  roost  in  their  native 
land.  At  their  present  rate  of  increase,  it  will  not 
be  long  before  they  can  engage  in  similar  manoeu- 
vers  here. 

214 


Some    Naturalized    Foreigners 

WESTERN    COLONIZING   AGENTS 

Activity  in  introducing  foreign  birds  has  been  by 
no  means  confined  to  the  east.  Beside  the  group  of 
men  in  St.  Louis  who  naturalized  the  tree-sparrow 
already  referred  to,  many  individuals  throughout  the 
western  states  have  encouraged  the  immigration  of 
birds  from  Asia,  as  well  as  Europe.  The  first  Mon- 
golian and  other  Asiatic  pheasants  to  reach  the 
United  States  were  sent  to  Oregon  from  China  in 
1881  by  Judge  O,  N.  Denny,  formerly  consul-general 
at  Shanghai.  Most  of  the  birds  died  on  the  long 
voyage,  only  twelve  males  and  three  females  reach- 
ing Portland  alive.  Later,  about  three  dozen  ring- 
necked  pheasants  were  liberated  in  one  place  and 
nineteen  at  another.  Two  years  after,  golden  and 
silver  pheasants  were  placed  with  some  ring-necks  on 
Protection  Island,  near  Port  Townsend,  Washington. 
While  all  four  colonies  were  successful,  the  hardy, 
prolific  Mongolian  pheasant,  as  might  have  been  ex- 
pected, increased  more  rapidly  than  all  the  others  put 
together.  Within  ten  years  it  had  overrun  western 
Oregon,  and  now  promises  to  become  a  common 
game  bird  if  sufficiently  protected. 

"English  pheasants,"  says  Mr.  T.  S.  Palmer,  of 
the  Biological  Survey,  "  have  been  imported  mainly 
in  the  eastern  states ;  some  were  liberated  near 
Tarrytown,  New  York,  about  thirty-five  years  ago; 
seventy-eight  were  turned  out  on  Jekyl  Island  near 
Brunswick,  Georgia,  in  1887,  and  these  increased  to 
eight  hundred  and  fifty  during  the  following  year; 
others  were  introduced  into  New  Jersey.  Since  1890 
there  has  been  widespread  interest  in  these  experi- 

215 


How   to   Attract   the    Birds 

ments,  and  pheasants  (mainly  Mongolian)  have  now 
been  introduced  into  at  least  twenty-five  states,  and 
have  increased  rapidly  through  protection  laws  and 
the  establishment  of  pheasantries  for  their  propaga- 
tion." Concerning  the  other  foreign  game  birds, 
for  whose  naturalization  many  enthusiastic  sports- 
men have  labored  in  vain,  the  painful  facts  are 
quickly  told.  The  few  sand  grouse  liberated  in 
Oregon  promptly  disappeared.  Of  a  large  importa- 
tion of  Indian  black  partridges  only  three  lived  to 
reach  their  destination  in  Illinois.  The  black 
grouse,  which  has  been  liberated  in  Newfoundland, 
in  Vermont  and  other  eastern  states,  appears  to  be 
holding  its  own.  Recently  the  capercailzie  has  been 
introduced  in  the  Adirondacks. 

Although  several  thousand  European  quail  were 
distributed  in  New  England  and  the  middle  states, 
all  disappeared  after  a  year  or  two.  What  splendid 
results  the  same  amount  of  money  and  effort  ex- 
pended on  our  more  desirable  Bob -White,  or  the 
fast  disappearing  prairie -grouse,  or  the  woodcock, 
for  example,  might  have  accomplished !  Ought  we 
not  to  be  just  before  we  are  generous? 

Thanks  to  the  homesickness  of  the  Dutch  and 
English  colonists,  who  had  no  sooner  cleared  the 
wilderness  around  their  homes  than  they  sent  to 
Europe  for  trees,  shrubs,  vines,  and  plants  from  the 
dear  old  gardens  left  behind,  our  native  flora  was 
speedily  enriched  by  valuable  additions,  many  of 
which  took  kindly  to  the  soil  and,  escaping  from 
cultivation,  became  wild.  And  how  many  weed 
seeds  stole  a  passage  across  the  Atlantic  with  them ! 
Perhaps  the  colonists  longed  as  greatly  to  see  the 

216 


Some    Naturalized    Foreigners 

familiar  birds  from  their  old  homes,  too,  but  no 
one  risked  sending  for  them  until  steam  shortened 
the  ocean  crossing.  Within  the  last  few  years,  a 
number  of  bird-loving  Germans  living  in  Portland, 
Oregon,  have  been  doing  their  utmost  to  naturalize 
the  songsters  of  the  Fatherland  on  the  Pacific  slope. 
Owing  partly  to  the  equable  climate  of  the  Puget 
Sound  region  making  migration  unnecessary,  their 
efforts  are  uncommonly  successful.  Blackbirds, 
thrushes,  starlings,  skylarks,  green  finches,  and  gold- 
finches have  been  acclimatized,  and  are  increasing. 
A  second  attempt  to  introduce  the  nightingale  and 
the  blackcap  was  made  early  in  the  spring  of  1902, 
when  a  large  importation  reached  New  York  in 
safety ;  but,  shameful  to  tell,  the  majority  of  them 
were  permitted  to  die  on  the  way  to  Oregon  for 
want  of  water ! 

A   CHASE   IN    MID -OCEAN 

If  some  of  these  feathered  travelers  from  Europe 
could  write  the  story  of  their  adventures  and  their 
impressions  of  America,  what  thrilling,  hair-breadth 
escapes  might  be  told,  what  a  stimulating  effect  the 
"odious  comparisons"  might  have  on  our  lightly- 
enforced  or  non-existing  bird  laws!  Because  the 
birds  chiefly  concerned  in  the  following  tale  couldn't 
write  it,  unfortunately  it  necessarily  ends  at  the 
opening  of  its  most  interesting  chapter. 

In  an  out-of-the-way  corner  of  London,  at  the 
back  of  a  bird  fancier's  shop,  where  cockatoos  and 
parrots  screamed  and  swore  at  one  another,  dogs 
yelped  and  whined  while  straining  at  their  chains, 

217 


How   to   Attract   the    Birds 

pigeons  cooed  their  tiresome  love  stories  all  the  day 
long,  and  shrill-voiced  canaries  tried  to  drown  every 
other  noise,  some  blackbirds  and  brown  thrushes 
were  seen  huddled  together,  silent  and  disconsolate, 
in  tiny,  dirty  cages.  From  the  condition  of  their 
plumage  it  was  evident  that  they  had  been  caged 
many  months. 

On  that  bright  May  morning  when  an  American 
visitor  chanced  to  enter  the  bird  shop,  wild  thrushes 
were  tripping  lightly  and  swiftly  through  the  grass 
on  every  lawn  in  England  with  the  same  freedom  of 
motion,  the  same  alert  grace  that  characterizes  their 
American  cousin,  the  robin.  Sweet,  bell -like  notes 
were  pealing  from  the  throats  of  happy  thrushes 
throughout  merry  England  at  that  glad  time  of  the 
year.  In  every  English  hedge  blackbirds  piped  the 
richest  of  sweet  songs  to  nesting  mates  hidden 
among  the  blossoming  hawthorns.  There  are  no 
finer  songsters  living  than  these  two.  The  contrast 
afforded  by  the  miserable,  dejected  thrush  and  black- 
bird prisoners  in  the  shop  was  too  appealingly 
piteous :  every  one — there  were  only  twelve  pairs- 
was  purchased  forthwith. 

But  the  American  visitor  loved  her  own  land  too 
well  not  to  take  those  birds  home  with  her.  Two 
days  later  they  had  started  westward  across  the 
Atlantic,  comfortably  housed  in  large  cages,  which 
were  placed  in  a  sunny,  sheltered  corner  of  the  upper 
deck.  Their  spirits  quickly  revived ;  so  did  their 
appetites,  which  were  amazing.  A  sack  of  sand,  an- 
other of  crushed  hemp,  some  patent  food  for  soft- 
billed  birds,  garden  snails,  and  fresh  fruit  from  the 
table,  kept  them  in  perfect  health. 

218 


Some    Naturalized    Foreigners 

No  matter  how  much  food  was  in  their  cages, 
they  ate  only  twice  a  day,  in  the  early  morning  and 
late  afternoon.  One  evening  when  their  guardian 
opened  the  thrushes'  door  to  refill  a  drinking  cup, 
suddenly  a  bird  brushed  past  her  face :  a  thrush  had 
escaped!  From  stem  to  stern  of  that  great  steamer 
a  lusty  German  sailor  and  the  bereaved  American 
pursued  that  little  bird.  After  resting  a  moment  on 
the  moorings  of  a  lifeboat  it  flew  among  the  rigging, 
then  down  on  the  deck,  then  up  on  the  captain's 
bridge,  and  finally  took  shelter  from  the  wind  and 
human  pursuers  under  a  piece  of  sail-cloth  beyond 
reach.  And  the  wise  captain  would  not  permit  the 
sailor  to  climb  after  it  then.  "If  it  flies  away  from 
the  ship,"  said  he,  "it  is  lost  forever;  it  could  never 
overtake  us  and  would  soon  die.  Wait  until  it  goes 
to  sleep  ;  then  the  sailor  may  try  again." 

Darkness  fell ;  the  long,  table  d'hote  dinner  of  a 
German  liner  finally  dragged  to  an  end,  and  news  of 
the  supperless,  solitary  thrush  under  the  sail-cloth  was 
eagerly  sought  for.  "It's  too  bad,"  said  the  officer 
on  the  bridge,  in  his  kind  German  way.  "When  you 
were  at  dinner  your  little  bird  was  sleeping  with  one 
eye  open,  it  seems ;  he  was  too  quick  for  that  sailor. 
No;  I  don't  know  which  way  he  flew.  Maybe  he 
went  straight  to  sea  in  the  dark;  maybe  he  flew  to- 
ward the  stern  of  the  ship.  If  so,  I  guess  he  was 
drawn  by  suction  down  one  of  those  big  funnels,  and 
that  ends  him,  sure,  if  he  went  down  the  one  that 
leads  to  the  engine-room.  Never  mind,"  he  con- 
tinued, trying  to  be  consoling.  "What's  the  use  of 
bothering  about  one  leetle  bird?" 

But   the    guardian,    refusing    to    be    comforted, 

219 


How   to   Attract   the    Birds 

% 

sought  the  seclusion  that  the  cabin  granted,  and  sur- 
rendered her  imagination  to  dismal  reflections.  Poor 
little  solitary  waif,  beating  its  wings,  so  long  unused, 
back  and  forth  above  the  waves  over  an  unknown 
sea,  engulfed  in  darkness,  straining  every  muscle  to 
reach  the  lights  on  the  fast  disappearing  vessel,  only 
to  sink  at  last  from  exhaustion  into  the  cruel,  cold 
sea !  A  sharp  knock  at  the  stateroom  door  startled 
the  occupant.  Without  waiting  for  a  "Come  in," 
blonde  Gustave,  the  room  steward,  threw  open  the 
door  and  entered,  smiling,  with  the  truant  thrush  safe 
in  his  hand!  "It  flew  down  the  funnel  into  the 
butcher  shop,"  said  Gustave,  simply.  The  butcher 
asked  the  officer  on  the  bridge  if  a  pet  bird  had  been 
lost  by  any  of  the  passengers.  The  officer  said, 
"Yes;  take  it  to  stateroom  117." 

Not  a  feather  had  been  injured.  That  particular 
thrush  took  an  extra  long"  nap  the  next  morning 
when  its  companions  were  feasting  on  snails,  other- 
wise it  appeared  none  the  worse  for  its  reckless  ad- 
ventures. Three  days  later,  when  the  cage  doors 
were  purposely  opened  on  the  lawn  of  their  guar- 
dian's Long  Island  home,  thrush  followed  thrush 
with  a  glad  cry,  and  blackbirds  followed  thrushes  to 
the  trees  and  freedom.  Now  the  really  interesting 
part  of  this  story  would  properly  begin. 


220 


INDEX 


The  asterisk   (*)   before  a  number  indicates  the  page  on  which  a  picture  of 
the  bird  or  its  nest  may  be  found. 


Auk,  The,  no,  in. 

Beach  birds,  102,  203. 
Bittern,  American,  102. 
Blackbirds,  The,  185,  188,  217. 
Blackbird,  European,  210,  218. 
Blackbird,  Red-winged,  135. 
Blackcap,  European,  217. 
Bluebird,  *6,  7,48,    *79,   135,    145, 

148,  *is8,  176,  190. 
Blue  Jay.     See  Jay. 
Bobolink,  39,  57,  89,   100,   116,   120, 

134,  136,  153,  188. 
Bob    White,  78,    81,    119,    185,    188, 

216. 

Bullfinch,  European,  122,  209. 
Bunting,  Indigo,  95,  120,  ^191. 
Bunting,  Snow,  146,  187,  188. 
Buzzard.     See  Vulture. 

Canary,  122,  123. 

Canary,  Wild.     See  Yellow  Warbler. 

Capercailzie,  216. 

Cardinal  Grosbeak.     See  Grosbeak. 

Catbird,  10,  13,  54,  176. 

Cedar-bird,  or  Waxwing.  See  Wax- 
wing. 

Chat,  Yellow-breasted,  54. 

Cherrybird.     See  Waxwing. 

Chewink,  139,  157,  185,  188. 

Chickadee,  5,  13,  16,  ^48,  ^49,  50, 
119,  146,  180,  190. 

Chicken,  Barnyard,  40,  78,  81,  109, 
116,  125. 

Cormorant,  76. 


Cowbird,   57,  *6i,  82,  188. 
Creeper,  Brown,  13,  180. 
Crossbill,  American  Red,  146,  149. 
Crossbill,  *White-winged,  149. 
Crow,  American,  72,  87,  89,  109,  130, 

*i44,  151,  157,  170,  185. 
Cuckoos,  The,   n,  41,  105,  176,  177, 

178. 

Cuckoo,  Black-billed,  178. 
Cuckoo,  European,  57. 
Cuckoo,  Yellow-billed,  130,  178. 

Dove,    Mourning,    41,    ^43,    53,    ^74, 

188. 
Ducks,  The,  3,  40,  78,   80,  108,  143, 

148,  154- 

Duck,  Chinese  Mandarin,  51. 
Duck,  Wood,  48,  51. 

Eagle,  82,  109. 
Egret,  41. 

Finches,  The,  12,  186,  188. 
Finch,  Green,  European,  217. 
Finch,  Purple,  75,   97. 
Flicker,    n,     16,    ^47,    75,    107,    108, 

*i29,  130,  180,    185. 
Flycatchers,     The,     105,     147,     151, 

174. 
Flycatcher,  Crested,  16,  54. 

Goldfinch,   American,  (Thistle-bird), 

6,  12,  53,  100,  187,  211. 
Goldfinch,  European,    121,   209,    210, 

*2ii,  217. 


221 


Index 


Goose,  Wild,  109,  133,  151,  158. 

Goshawk,  199. 

Crackle,  Bronzed,    *5,    7,     130,    188, 

213- 
Grosbeak,  Cardinal,  10,  ^98,  99,  120, 

!34- 
Grosbeak,     Rose -breasted,    99,    ";:i37, 

187. 

Ground  Robin.     See  Chewink. 
Grouse,  The,  185. 
Grouse,  Black,  216. 
Grouse,  Canada,  127. 
Grouse,  Prairie,  126,  216. 
Grouse,  Richardson's,  ^107. 
Grouse,   Ruffed,    42,    *78,    ^96,    105, 

126,  188,  199. 
Grouse,  Sand,  216. 
Gulls,  The,  102,   146,  203. 
Gull,  American  Herring,  85,  146,  *2O2. 

Hawks,  The,  3,  72,  77,  95,  108,  109, 

i33»  J70,  i73»  !96. 
Hawk,  Cooper's,  199. 
Hawk,  Duck,  199. 
Hawk,  Fish.    See  Osprey. 
Hawk,  Red-shouldered,  ^171. 
Hawk,  Sharp-shinned,  199. 
Herons,  The,  41,  79. 
Heron,  Snowy,  97. 
High-hole.     See  Flicker. 
Humming-bird,    Ruby-throated,    12, 

*2i-36,  54,  75,  *j6,  88,  109,  152. 

Indigo  Bunting.     See  Bunting. 

Jay,  Blue,   13,  72,  130,  ^133. 
Jay,  Florida,  74. 
Junco,  146,  158,  187. 

Kildeer,  119. 

Kingbird,  87,  106,  109,  174. 

Kingfisher,  Belted,   42,    *45,  79,    88, 

130,  ^131 . 
Kinglet,       Golden  -  Crowned,        146, 

180. 
Kinglet,  Ruby-Crowned,  146,  180. 


Lark.     See  Skylark. 

Lark,  Horned,  188. 

Lark,  Meadow.     See  Meadow-lark. 

Lark,  Wood,  210. 

Linnet,  209. 

Longspur,  146,  187. 

Loon,  Common,  108. 

Martin,  Purple,  16,  147,   173,  *i89. 
Meadow-lark,  57,  139,  183,  188. 
Mocking-bird,    13,     120,     122,    ^123, 
133,   176. 

Night-hawk,  42,  102,  *ic>3,  129,    148, 

174. 

Nightingale,  European,  217. 
Nuthatches,    The,    13,     16,    50,    *88, 

146,  180,  190. 

Nuthatch,  Red-Breasted,  65. 
Nuthatch,  White-Breasted,  ^65. 

Orioles,  The,  176,  178. 

Oriole,  Baltimore,  10,   13,  53,  57,  87, 

93.,  95>  99.  *"7,  r78,  179.  J95- 
Oriole,  Orchard,  10,  195. 
Osprey,  77. 
Ostrich,  79,  80,  108. 
Ovenbird,  54,  89,  185. 
Owls,  The,  16,  48,  72,  77,  108,  133, 

170,  173,  196. 
Owl,  Horned,  77,  ^199. 
Owl,  Screech,  ^155. 
Owl,  Snowy,  100,  149. 

Paroquet,  Carolina,  98. 
Partridge,  Indian  Black,  216. 
Peabody    Bird.      See    White-throated 

Sparrow. 

Pelican,  Brown,  76. 
Pewee,  Wood,   119,  174. 
Phalarope,  80. 
Pheasant,  English,  215. 
Pheasant,  Mongolian,  215. 
Pheasant,  Ring-necked,  215. 
Pheasant,  Silver,  215. 
Phoebe,  7,  53,  85,  *86,    119,  154,  174. 


222 


Index 


Pigeon,  Wild,  77,  IH  ,  ixi,  143. 
Plover,  The,  78,  80,  148,  185. 
Plover,  Kildeer,  119. 
Plover,  Ring-necked,  153. 
Ptarmigan,  100,  *ioi. 

Quail.     See  Bob  White. 
Quail,  European,  216. 

Redpoll,  146,  *i47,    187. 

Redstart,  96. 

Reedbird.     See  Bobolink. 

Robin,  American,  7,  10,  13,  39, 
*40,  53,  67,  *68,  70,  79,  96,  124, 
132,  145,  151,  157,  176,  185,  203, 
218. 

Robin,  Red-breast,  European,  210. 

Sandpiper,   153. 

Sapsucker,  The,  16,  129,  180. 

Shrike,  Northern,  146. 

Siskin,  187. 

Skylark,    European,    160,    209,    *2io, 

217. 

Snipe,  78,  148. 
Snowbird.     See  Junco. 
Snowflake.     See  Snow  Bunting. 
Sparrows,  The,  87,  97,  105,  139,  144, 

176,  185,  186,  210. 
Sparrow,  Canada.  See  White-throated 

Sparrow. 

Sparrow,  Chipping,  *53,  124,  187. 
Sparrow,  English,  8,  87,  97,  in,  122, 

157,  170,  187,  207. 
Sparrow,  Field,  134. 
Sparrow,    Hair.     See  Chipping  Spar- 
row. 
Sparrow,    Song,    39,    ^41,     120,    131, 

135,  187. 

Sparrow,  Tree,  188,  209,  215. 
Sparrow,  Vesper,  107,  134. 
Sparrow,  White-Throated,  120,  187. 
Starling,   European,  The,    212,  ^214, 

217. 

Swallows,  The,  46,  51,  "157,  173. 
Swallow,  Bank,  42,  ^46. 


Swallow,  Barn,  ^52,  190. 
Swallow,  Chimney.     See  Swift. 
Swallow,  Tree,  48. 
Swift,    Chimney,    ^50,    51,    108,    14-3, 
173,    190. 

Tailor-bird,  52. 

Tanager,  Scarlet,  io,  87,  95,  99, 
176. 

Terns,  The,  42,  102,  105. 

Terns,  Sooty,  149. 

Thistle-bird.  See  American  Gold- 
finch. 

Thrasher,  Brown,  176,  185,  210, 
218. 

Thrushes,  The,  io,  13,  58,  134,  157, 
176. 

Thrush,  Brown,  European,  217. 

Thrush,  Gold-crowned,  54. 

Thrush,  Hermit,  120,  133. 

Thrush,  Wood,  13,  134,  145. 

Titmouse,  Tufted,   13,   16,  50,  190. 

Turkey,  Wild,  81. 

Vireos,  The,  57,  79,  105,  174. 
Vireo,  Red-eyed,  120. 
Vireo,  White-eyed,  ^72. 
Vultures,  The,  *i9"8,  200. 
Vulture,  Turkey,  76,  109. 

Warblers,    The,     15,    57,     144,     174, 

177. 

Warbler,  Blackburnian,  96. 
Warbler,  Ground,  185. 
Warbler,  Parula,  54. 
\Varbler,  Redstart,  96. 
Warbler,  Yellow,  57,  *6o,  *6i. 
Waxwing,  Cedar.     Frontispiece.     *4, 

6,  io,  n,  148,  159,  ^193. 
Whip-poor-will,  ^94,  102,  174. 
Woodcock,  77,  105,  *no,  185,  216. 
Woodpeckers,    The,    13,    48,    79,  96, 

129,  179,  203. 

Woodpecker,    Downy,     16,     82,    ^83, 

130,  180,  *i8i. 
Woodpecker,  Hairy,  16,  130,  180. 


223 


Index 


Woodpecker,    Red-headed,     16,    130, 

180. 
Woodpecker,     Yellow-winged.        See 

Flicker. 

Wrens,  The,  176,  190. 
Wren,  Carolina,  136. 


Wren,  House,  7,  16,  48,  *5i,  58, 

"5.  T34»  *i9o. 
Wren,  Marsh,  54,  ^55. 
Wren,  Winter,  146. 

Yellow-throat,    Maryland,    89,   136, 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 

AN  INITIAL  FINE  OF  25  CENTS 

WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  5O  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  $1.OO  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE. 


FEB  28l939*yq*  DEC  1 4 1989 


t  H 


LD  21-100w-8,'34 


U.C.  BERKELEY  LIBRARY 


BIOLOGV 
LIBRARr 


676 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


:-::•-: 


